Wolfgang Schwanke:
The reason I'm asking is I'm having second thoughts now. It looks
very unspectacular, really just another platform in the main railway
station with LU logos. They could well have relocated the platform
used by Underground trains in all those years. Or is it still the
original place?

Yes, pretty much so.

Jack Taylor:
Yes and no. One face is still the original.

When the line was built there were connections with the national rail
network, for through running from the Great Western suburban stations. The
four platforms in the suburban station were allocated slightly differently...

Jack isn't going back far enough. In the *original* layout when the
Metropolitan Railway (earliest predecessor of the Hammersmith & City
Line) opened in 1863, its station was separate from the main Paddington
station. The Metropolitan station was then called Paddington (Bishop's
Road) or just Bishop's Road. It had two outside platforms, but three
tracks; I presume the middle track was for running the steam engines
around the trains.

West of the station, the Metropolitan tracks joined onto the GWR main line
to allow for through running as Jack describes, although these services
did not exist at first. In addition, the Metropolitan's original trains
were supplied by the GWR and these tracks were therefore needed to get
them onto the line.

In 1864 the Hammersmith & City Railway opened its line from Hammersmith.
Trains ran onto the GWR at a junction at what is now Westbourne Park,
then off the GWR and onto the Metropolitan. Later, separate tracks
were built for these to avoid conflicts with GWR trains. Trains from
GWT suburban stations ran onto the Metropolitan as well, including
broad-gauge trains until 1869.

The main Paddington station was expanded over the years and in 1933
Bishop's Road station was integrated into it and rebuilt with four
platform faces (two islands) serving four tracks. *This* is the
layout Jack is thinking of:

the Underground (which used to use the middle two platforms)

According to my source, "London's Termini" by Alan A. Jackson, this
is backwards: the two middle tracks were used by terminating GWR
(later BR) steam suburban trains, and the two outer ones (platforms 13
and 16 of the combined Paddington station) by the Metropolitan Line.
Metropolitan Line trains could still use the middle tracks if necessary,
until 1966 when the track connection east of the platforms was severed.
In 1967 the tracks were reconfigured again to put the Metropolitan
(later Hammersmith & City) Line onto the two northernmost tracks,
platforms 15 and 16, as already discussed.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto "I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pedantic and
that's just as good." -- D Gary Grady

My text in this article is in the public domain.