was reduced to four hours per day during morning and evening peak hours from 1915. The Snow Hill tunnel closed to passenger service during the war, and the north–south link was used only by freight in the postwar years. Service on the Circle and Metropolitan line tracks increased over subsequent years, however, following electrification of those tracks in 1905–06. The infrastructure around King's Cross was bombed by Germany in 1940 during the Blitz early in World War II. The Circle line between Euston Square and King's Cross was particularly damaged and services stopped completely for five months. When the line reopened in March 1941 a new pair of platforms were opened to the west, making use of abandoned tunnels from the 1860s and providing a shorter connection to the Piccadilly and Northern lines. This scheme, part of what is now Kings Cross St Pancras tube station, had been planned by the MR since 1935. The original platforms were abandoned but are still in place and visible from passing trains as of 2019. After the war, national rail services continued to use the City Widened Lines platforms of the original station from the GNR route (now known as the East Coast Main Line) and from the Midland Mainline. Thameslink programme The Snow Hill tunnel, which had seen no passenger services since 1916, closed completely on 24 March 1969 with the withdrawal of freight services; the tracks were lifted in May 1971. Services from the East Coast line then ended in 1976 after the Northern City Line was transferred from London Underground control to British Rail, allowing services to run from Finsbury Park directly to Moorgate avoiding King's Cross. A handful of services from the Midland line continued to run, but the Widened Lines were almost unused in the late 1970s. In 1979 an £80 million project was launched to electrify the Midland Mainline from Bedford to St Pancras and the City Widened Lines. The station was closed, along with the line, and work was completed by May 1982. The tracks were lowered to allow for overhead power cables to be installed and several bridges were remodelled. Despite completion of the line and availability of rolling stock by early 1983, the opening of the line was delayed over a dispute with the Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF) union regarding driver-only operation on the new electric trains. The station eventually