The Victorians had an obsession with new technology. When they needed to move coal faster, they invented the steam powered train. When the Thames smelled awful, they built an enormous and expensive sewer system. When they wanted to get across the river, they built the world’s first underwater tunnel. And when in the 1850s London’s streets were so congested that it was hardly possible to travel anywhere, they built the world’s first underground railway.
1880s double-deck horse tram at the Transport Museum
Of course, the Tube wasn’t the first thing they tried. Last week I visited the London Transport Museum, which traces public transportation from the early nineteenth century to today. In 1829, Londoners could ride around in the new omnibuses, the horse-drawn precursors to today’s bus network. By the late nineteenth century, there were even horse-drawn double deck buses and track-based trams. The horses generated one million tons of dung each year.
Victorian engineers tried several schemes for train-based transport within the city. Traditional railways were banned in central London, so they had to build their railways either high above or underneath street level. In 1936, the London & Greenwich railway ran along elevated viaducts – and was quickly shut down due to the terrible noise. The atmospheric railway, a scheme to propel cars in vacuum tubes, was foiled by rats chewing on the seals.
1922 Metropolitan Line locomotive
The eventual winner was Charles Pearson, whose tireless lobbying led to the creation of the world’s first underground line, the Metropolitan, which opened in 1863, just a few months after his death. The line was built with the “cut-and-cover” method, which required workers to dig up existing streets and properties to build the tunnel, then bury it again. All subsequent lines took advantage of Brunel’s tunneling shield system. The District Line, which opened in 1868, ran in Sir Joseph Bazalgette’s monumental Thames embankment, along with the new sewer line. The early trains were steam powered, and filled the tunnel with toxic fumes that made Tube travel nearly unbearable. By the turn of the century, the railways had transitioned to clean electric trains.
Early Metropolitan railway map
The Tube is a classic story of Victorian engineering. A rapidly growing modern city gave rise to new problems to be solved. Optimistic Londoners eagerly attacked the challenge with cutting-edge technology, failing several times and spending colossal sums of money before building a massive, beautiful, revolutionary system. Today the London Underground still runs in Pearson and Bazalgette’s tunnels, and is a model for efficient public transit worldwide.
The Tube has always been known for its clear signage.
