Central line (London Underground) and Great Eastern Railway buildings east of , from when the line to Epping was a rural branch line. In terms of total passengers, the Central line is the busiest on the Underground. In 2011/12 over 260 million passenger journeys were recorded on the line. It currently operates the second-most frequent service on the network, with 34 trains per hour (tph) operating for half-an-hour in the westbound direction during the morning peak, and between 27 and 30 tph during the rest of the peak. This makes the Central line the busiest and most intensively-used railway line in the United Kingdom:
History of the London Underground London (TfL), which had been opposed to the arrangement and, following financial failure of the infrastructure companies, had taken full responsibility by 2010. The contactless Oyster card first went on sale in 2003. The East London line closed in 2007 to be converted into a London Overground line, and in December 2009 the Circle line changed from serving a closed loop around the centre of London to a spiral also serving Hammersmith. Currently there is an upgrade programme to increase capacity on several Underground lines, and work is under way on a Northern line extension to Battersea. In the first