London Underground and the mechanisms are regularly degreased to lower the potential for fires. The only wooden escalator not to be replaced was at Greenford station, which remained until October 2015 when TfL replaced it with the first incline lift on the UK transport network. There are 426 escalators on the London Underground system and the longest, at , is at Angel. The shortest, at Stratford, gives a vertical rise of . There are 184 lifts, and numbers have increased in recent years because of investment making tube stations accessible. Over 28 stations will have lifts installed over the next 10 years,
Bow Road tube station Hammersmith & City line (then the Metropolitan line) following in 1936. The Great Eastern Railway Bow Road railway station, which closed in 1949, stood on the opposite of Bow Road. Ownership of the station passed to London Underground in 1950. The station booking hall is a Grade II listed building. Bow Road marks the point where westbound trains from Upminster and Barking enter a tunnel; the gradient of the tunnel approach, which is to the east of the station, is 1 in 28, the steepest on the tube network. The station platforms are below street level, partly in a tunnel