Bakerloo line extension to Camberwell

The Bakerloo line extension to Camberwell is a proposed extension of the London Underground to Camberwell in South London by extending the Bakerloo line to Camberwell from. It was due to be built in the late 1940s, but the project was cancelled. In recent years, Transport for London officials have acknowledged that the project is being revisited, but it has yet to appear in any official documents.

Background
Most of the London Underground is north of the River Thames, while public transport in South London is generally provided by National Rail suburban networks and London Buses. Both Camberwell and neighbouring Walworth once had their own railway stations, Walworth Road and Camberwell on the London, Chatham and Dover Railway into Blackfriars (now the present-day Thameslink route), but these stations closed in 1916. As a result, this area of South London has no immediate rail or tube links, the nearest stations being Elephant & Castle, Denmark Hill, or.

When the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway opened its line between Baker Street and Elephant and Castle, several alternative schemes were already in place for extending the line at both its northern and southern ends. One rejected proposal, the New Cross & Waterloo Railway bill of 1898, had envisaged the construction of a line as far south as Old Kent Road. The possibility of building a line through Camberwell first emerged in 1913, when the Lord Mayor of London announced a proposal for the Bakerloo Tube to be extended to The Crystal Palace via Camberwell Green, Dulwich and Sydenham Hill, but nothing was done to implement the plan. In 1921, the London Electric Railway costed an extension to Camberwell, Dulwich and Sydenham and, in 1922, plans for an extension to Orpington via Loughborough Junction and Catford were considered. In 1928, a route to Rushey Green via Dulwich was suggested. Again, no action was taken, although the London and Home Counties Traffic Advisory Committee approved an extension to Camberwell in 1926.

1947 extension
In 1931, an extension to Camberwell was approved as part of the London Electric Metropolitan District and Central London Railway Companies (Works) Act, 1931. The route was to follow Walworth Road and Camberwell Road south from Elephant & Castle, with stations at Albany Road and under Denmark Hill at Camberwell. station was also to be reconstructed with a third platform to provide the additional turnaround capacity, a new ticket hall and escalators. The need to prioritise the extension from to  to provide relief for the Metropolitan line, financial constraints and the outbreak of the Second World War prevented any work from being started.
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The 1931 enabling powers were renewed by the government in 1947 under the Special Enactments (Extension of Time) Act, 1940, and the projected extension as far as Camberwell even appeared on a 1949 edition of the Underground map but no further work was done. Train indication signs showing Camberwell as a destination were created in anticipation of the southern extension and erected in some Tube stations; these signs were still seen in existence at Warwick Avenue station until the 1990s. Also, the order for 1949 rolling stock - built to augment the 1938 stock fleet - included sufficient cars to provide extra trains for the Camberwell extension.

Eventually the proposal was allowed to gradually fade away. Extensions and new stations were not in favour post-war, as road use increased massively. However the problem of inadequate turnround capacity at Elephant & Castle remained. The plan was briefly revived in the 1950s with the intermediate station now at Walworth and the terminus being located under Camberwell Green. Furthermore Elephant & Castle would not be altered and the additional turnround capacity would be provided by making Camberwell a three platform terminus.

The original desire to extend to Camberwell was driven by the wish to serve the area but in the later scheme operational issues were a major consideration. By the time that the Bakerloo line branches to Watford Junction and had opened, the line was running at full capacity, limited by the need to terminate trains at Elephant & Castle. By extending to Camberwell, where crucially there would be three platforms, the whole line would have benefitted from an improved frequency.

Post-war austerity, the levelling off of demand and, above all, the disproportionally high cost of the project with a 3-platform deep-level terminus and the need to purchase 14 further trains and build a new depot for them meant that the project became unaffordable.



Recent activity
After more than half a century of lying largely dormant, with only the occasional proposal to extend to Peckham in the 1970s, the plans have recently been re-awakened. In 2006 Ken Livingstone, the then Mayor of London, announced that within twenty years Camberwell would have a tube station. Transport for London have indicated that extensions, possibly to Camberwell, could play a part in the future transport strategy for South London over the coming years.

During 2005/06, TfL commissioned a transport strategic report for London, Transport 2025: transport challenges for a growing city. Transport commentators have reported that this publication had recommended a Bakerloo extension as the most beneficial option for extending the Tube in South London, and that it considered three route options for the Bakerloo line; from Elephant & Castle, the proposed routes were either south to Camberwell and Streatham, or east to Beckenham and Hayes: via Burgess Park, east to Peckham Rye and Catford Bridge,with the option of taking over the Hayes Line to terminate at Hayes
 * Option 1

south to Camberwell Green, and then on to Herne Hill and Streatham Hill, with a branch at Tulse Hill which would take over the National Rail line to Beckenham Junction
 * Option 2

a similar route to option 1, but after Burgess Park running via the Old Kent Road and New Cross before joining the Hayes line at Lewisham and terminating at Hayes.
 * Option 3


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An alternative proposal to build a Cross River Tram emerged in the 21st Century, which would have seen the construction of a new tram line and stations on Walworth Road, but this project was abandoned in 2008 due to cost.