The world's first underground railway, between Paddington (Bishop's Road) and Farringdon Street - with trains hauled by steam engines - was opened by the Metropolitan Railway on 10th January 1863. The initial section was six km (nearly four miles) in length, and provided both a new commuter rail service and an onward rail link for passengers arriving at Paddington, Euston and King's Cross main line stations to the City of London.
By the end of 1868 another company, the Metropolitan District, had opened a line between Westminster and South Kensington, where it linked up with a branch line built by the Metropolitan Railway from Edgware Road. Extensions eastwards by both the District and the Metropolitan enabled the Circle Line of today to be completed by 1884. All these lines were built by the ? cut and cover? method, which involved excavating a trench for the railway - usually in the middle of a roadway - then covering the tracks with a brick-lined tunnel and finally restoring the surface.
By the end of the 19th century, the cut and cover system had been abandoned in central London because of the disruption and traffic congestion it caused during construction. But in the suburbs and further afield, the Metropolitan Railway had been extended by 1900 out across Middlesex and through Hertfordshire into Buckinghamshire to Aylesbury and beyond.
The oldest section of today's Underground in fact predates the Metropolitan Railway by 20 years. The Thames Tunnel between Rotherhithe and Wapping, the first such structure under water anywhere in the world, was built by Sir Marc Brunel and his famous son, Isambard. The method they adopted was similar to coal mining, sinking vertical shafts and then excavating the tunnels from within a metal shield. It is a tribute to the Brunels that major refurbishment to the tunnel fabric was only recently needed. Although it was designed for horse-drawn traffic, it opened in 1843 for pedestrians only, became a railway tunnel in 1869 and now carries the East London Line under the Thames. In 1870, another railway under the Thames opened with a cable-hauled line between the Tower of London and Bermondsey. That venture was no more successful in its original guise than the Thames Tunnel, and was converted for pedestrian use after just a few months (and closed altogether when Tower Bridge opened in 1894).
The Deep-Level Tube Lines
Once the cut and cover system of construction had been abandoned, new lines from the 1880s in central London and the inner suburbs have been built in twin tunnels some 20 metres underground, where a layer of clay made excavation relatively simple. The first such line was the City and South London Railway which ran for 5.2 km (3.25 miles) from King William Street in the City under the Thames to Stockwell. This was planned as a cable-hauled railway, but it opened in1890 as the world's first deep-level electric railway. This and subsequent similar lines have since always been known as tube railways.
The Waterloo & City Railway, also passing under the River, opened in 1898, followed two years later by the Central London Railway, known as the ? Twopenny Tube", from Shepherd's Bush to the Bank. Its popular name came from its fare of 2d (just under 1p) for any length of journey. Early this century, three American-financed tubes were built. The Baker Street & Waterloo Railway (soon abbreviated to ? Bakerloo") opened in 1906; the Great Northern, Piccadilly & Brompton Railway (also opened in 1906, and now part of the Piccadilly Line); and the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway (opened in 1907, and now part of the Northern Line).
Expansion
The Underground expanded rapidly between the wars, reaching Ealing Broadway in 1920, Edgware in 1924 and Morden in 1926. 1932 and 1933 saw the Piccadilly extended to Uxbridge and Cockfosters, and the District to Upminster. The Metropolitan reached Watford in 1925 and Stanmore in 1932.
A single authority, never officially but always popularly known as London Transport, was set up in 1933 and immediately began formulating plans to expand the Underground further both by building new extensions and by incorporating existing suburban lines. However the 1939-1945 war intervened, and eight km (five miles) of tunnel on the uncompleted eastern extension of the Central Line even became an underground aircraft component factory. Many tube stations were used as shelters during bombing raids. After the war, the Central Line scheme was completed, with the new tunnels to Newbury Park opening in 1947, and the extensions to West Ruislip and Epping opening in 1948 and 1949 respectively.
Recent Developments 3
The first new tube line in central London since 1907, the Victoria Line, was opened in 1969, with the southern extension to Brixton following in 1971. In December 1977 an extension of the Piccadilly Line beyond Hounslow West to Heathrow Airport was opened, and a further single-track loop to serve the airport's new Terminal 4 opened in 1986. The Jubilee Line was opened in 1979.
Work started on the £3.5 billion (estimated end of project cost) extended Jubilee Line in December 1993. Designed to carry up to 30 000 people per hour in each direction, the 16 km (ten mile) line will run from Green Park to Stratford via Westminster, Waterloo, Southwark, London Bridge, Bermondsey, Canada Water, Canary Wharf, North Greenwich, Canning Town and West Ham. It will help stimulate the regeneration of Docklands, relieve congestion on roads and on other lines, dramatically improve rail connections and bring parts of south and east London within reach of the Underground network for the first time. The line will be completed in 1999.
The Underground Train
There are two distinct types of train, known as surface and tube. The term surface applies to the trains on the Metropolitan, District, Circle, Hammersmith & City, and East London Lines, the oldest parts of the Underground system. In central London, they run through cut and cover double tunnels just below ground level, and are larger than the trains which run on the deep-level tube lines (Bakerloo, Central, Jubilee, Northern, Piccadilly, Victoria and Waterloo & City).
The earliest surface trains were hauled by steam locomotives fitted with special equipment which condensed much of the spent steam back into water. Electric trains first appeared on surface lines in the early 1900s.
Steam locomotive-hauled trains were obviously out of the question on the deep-level tube lines and the early trains on these lines were hauled by electric locomotives. In 1903 the Central purchased motor cars, which had a driving cab and a compartment behind the cab housing the motors. This design became standard on tube lines for the next 35 years, but from 1936 London Transport introduced trains with the motors and other electrical equipment below the floor, thereby increasing seating capacity.
Trains built between 1959 and 1964 for the Central and Piccadilly Lines had unpainted aluminium bodies, and those built in 1967 for the new Victoria Line were also equipped for automatic operation.
On the earliest tube trains, passenger entry and exit was by way of mesh gates at the end of each car. The gates were opened and closed by gatemen. Air-operated doors, usually under the control of a guard, were introduced on tube trains from 1920. Steam-hauled trains on the surface lines originally had compartments, but when electric trains were introduced early this century access was passenger-operated sliding doors rather than gates, and by air-operated doors from the mid-1930s. The latest surface and tube cars have passenger-operated doors with push-button control, ensuring that on open-air sections of the Underground (almost half the system, despite its name) only those doors though which passengers wish to alight or board are opened conserving train heating in cold weather.
In the first significant use of the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) for funding major public transport projects, Alstom is providing 106 new trains for the Northern Line. The first of the new trains came into service in 1998, replacing some of the oldest trains on the system.
A major element of the Central and the Waterloo and City Line modernisation is the introduction of new, state-of-the-art, tube trains. Built in Derby by ABB Transportation, the 1992 stock are among the most advanced metro trains in the world. The extended Jubilee Line will bring another new fleet of trains to London. These trains have also been built by Alstom, and are already operating on the Jubilee Line.
The trains on other lines (the Circle, Victoria, Bakerloo, Piccadilly and Metropolitan Lines) have recently been, or are being, refurbished, including the introduction of the corporate red, white and blue livery in part to overcome the effects of graffiti. Plans are also being developed to modernise District Line trains.