The station's location on the Northern line is unusual due to the dual-branch nature of that line. On the Charing Cross branch, Mornington Crescent is between Camden Town and Euston. The Bank branch also runs from Camden Town to Euston, but via tunnels which take an entirely different route to the Charing Cross branch and which do not pass through Mornington Crescent. Although modern-day tube maps show Mornington Crescent to the west of the Bank branch tunnels, it is actually to the east of them: the two branches cross over each other at Euston, so that between Euston and Camden Town, the Bank branch tunnels run to the west of the Charing Cross branch on which Mornington Crescent is situated. Harry Beck's 1933 tube map represented this correctly.
There is a northwards facing crossover to the north of the station to enable trains from Camden Town to terminate and head back north.[8]
Closure and reopening
On 23 October 1992, the station was shut so that the then 85-year-old lifts could be replaced. The intention was to open it within one year. However, due to lack of funding and the state of neglect, the station remained closed for 6 years.[9]
A concerted campaign to reopen the station was launched, with pressure from Camden Council, and assistance from the popular BBC Radio 4 panel game I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. The show frequently features the game Mornington Crescent, which takes its name from the station.
During the station's rebuilding, the original distinctive light blue tiling pattern was restored to the station (though taking into account modern fire safety requirements). The ticket hall was reconstructed and the original emergency stairs closed. A second lift shaft was converted (losing the unnecessary extra two lifts) into a staircase on one side and a series of station facilities on the other.[9]
Since its 1998 reopening, the station has been open at the same times as most other stations, including weekends, in an attempt to relieve the pressure on the increasingly busy nearby Camden Town station.
Services
The typical offpeak service in trains per hour (tph) is as follows:[11][12]
The station was used as a location for the anthology film Tube Tales (1999).
It was portrayed in the film Honest (2000), although the station actually used was Aldwych.
In Allt flyter (2008), Sara meets her mother (who has moved there from Sweden for a sportscasting job) outside the station during a Christmas trip to London.
In radio
Mornington Crescent is a spoof game, featured since the 1970s in the BBC Radio 4 comedy panel show I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, which satirises complicated strategy games. A Comic Heritage blue plaque honouring Willie Rushton, one of the show's longest-serving panelists, was installed within the station in 2002. It is located behind the ticket barrier at the top of the stairs to the platform.
In literature
China Miéville mentions this station and its long state of disuse during the 1990s in his novel King Rat (1998), also using it as scene of a brutal murder by dismemberment via a passing train.
In The Atrocity Archives (2004) by Charles Stross, the secret main entrance to the extremely secret Government establishment (the "Laundry") which the protagonist Bob Howard works for is situated in the gentlemen's toilets of Mornington Crescent tube station.
In Christopher Fowler's "Bryant & May" mysteries, the offices of the Peculiar Crimes Unit are above Mornington Crescent tube station.
Mornington Crescent is used by Robert Rankin in many of his novels as the home of the Ministry of Serendipity, a fictional agency whose main activity is to ensure the British Empire rules the globe, the top secret nature of the ministry being the main reason why the station was only open on weekdays and closed for "repairs" for much of the 1990s.
