gear being operated by the system used on the Waterloo and City Railway. The modified locomotives were a considerable improvement, but the motor coaches of an even lower weight were much better still. The CLR ordered 64 new motor cars designed to use Sprague's recently developed traction control system. The CLR was exclusively using the resulting electric multiple units by 1903. In July 1907, the fare was increased to 3d for journeys of more than seven or eight stations. The line was extended westwards with a loop serving a single platform at Wood Lane for the 1908 Franco-British Exhibition. A reduced fare of 1d, for a journey of three or fewer stations, was introduced in 1909, and season tickets became available from 1911. The extension to Liverpool Street opened the following year, providing access to the Great Eastern station and the adjacent Broad Street station by escalators. The Central London Railway was absorbed into the Underground Group on 1 January 1913. In 1911, the Great Western Railway won permission for a line from Ealing Broadway to a station near to the CLR's Shepherd's Bush station, with a connection to the West London Railway, and agreement to connect the line to the Central London Railway and for the CLR to run trains to Ealing Broadway. Construction of the extension from the CLR to Ealing Broadway started in 1912 but opening was delayed by World War I. The CLR purchased new rolling stock for the extension, which arrived in 1915 and was stored before being lent to the Bakerloo line. The rolling stock returned when the extension opened in 1920. In 1912, plans were published for a railway from Shepherd's Bush to Turnham Green and Gunnersbury, allowing the Central London Railway to run trains on London and South Western Railway (L&SWR) tracks to Richmond. The route was authorised in 1913 but work had not begun by the outbreak of war the following year. In 1919, an alternative route was published, with a tunnelled link to the disused L&SWR tracks south of their Shepherd's Bush station then via Hammersmith (Grove Road) railway station. Authorisation was granted in 1920, but the connection was never built, and the L&SWR tracks were used by the Piccadilly line when it was extended west of Hammersmith in 1932. London Transport and the Second World War On 1 July 1933, the Central London Railway and other transport companies in