23 October: Piccadilly Line

On this date in 1933, London Underground's Piccadilly Line was extended to Uxbridge. 10 things you may not know about the Piccadilly Line.

1. The Piccadilly Line is 71 km (44 miles) long, and is the second longest line after the Central Line. It has 53 stations, the second largest number after the District Line. It is used by 210,000,000 people a year.
2. The official colour of the Piccadilly Line is Pantone 072.
3. It serves many of London's top tourist attractions including Harrods (Knightsbridge), Hyde Park, Buckingham Palace (within walking distance from Green Park), Piccadilly Circus (after which the line is named), Leicester Square and Covent Garden, as well as London Heathrow Airport, the busiest airport in Europe (based on passenger numbers).
4. Station announcements, such as "Mind the gap" are made by Tim Bentinck, who played David Archer on the BBC radio 4 programme The Archers. He's also known as Earl of Portland and Count Bentinck, Viscount Woodstock, Baron Cirencester, and Count of the Holy Roman Empire.
5. The Piccadilly Line is one of the first to operate the night tube service, on Friday and Saturday nights from Heathrow Terminal 5 to Cockfosters from summer 2016.
6. Arsenal is the only tube station to be named after a football club.
7. The Piccadilly Line has the shortest distance between two stations anywhere on the tube network. They are Leicester Square station and Covent Garden. The journey is only between these two stations is 260 metres (0.16 mi) and takes just 20 seconds. At ground level, if someone stands equidistant between these stations they can see both of them. London Underground's standard £4.80 single cash fare for the journey between these two stations equates to £29.81 a mile, so it would be more expensive per mile to travel between these two stations than on the Venice Simplon Orient Express.
8. Covent Garden station is said to be haunted by the ghost of an actor called William Terriss.
9. There are a number of disused stations on the line - Aldwych, Brompton Road, Down Street, Osterley and Spring Grove, Park Royal and Twyford Abbey, and York Road. Aldwych is often used as a filming location. During the London Blitz and for most of World War II, famous works of art and other treasures were stored in closed sections of the Piccadilly Line. The Brompton Road station was used as the command centre of the 26th (London) Anti-Aircraft brigade.
10. Southgate station has an illuminated feature on its roof that looks like a Tesla coil; and Arnos Grove has its own Cat, known as Spooky.