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London Underground was formed in 1985, but its history dates back to 1863 when the world’s first opened in London.

Today, London Underground is a major business with three million made every day, serving 275 stations over 408 km (253 miles) of railway.
Past and future

London has changed a lot since the first first stretch of line opened on 10 January 1863. The inaugural stretch measured six kilometres (nearly four miles) and ran between Paddington (Bishop’s Road) and , creating quick connections from main line overground stations to the City.

Streets along the route were dug up, tracks laid in a trench, covered with a brick-lined tunnel and the replaced. Known as the ‘cut and cover’ method, this was quick and effective but created as many problems as it was designed to solve - causing congestion during construction - and was abandoned towards the end of the 19th century. By then, however, the Metropolitan was stretching ever further outwards: across Middlesex, through Hertfordshire and into Buckinghamshire.

Following the success of the ‘Met’ other companies were keen to board the ‘gravy train’ and by Christmas 1868, the had opened a line between Westminster and .

This linked with a branch line from the original ‘Met’, built at Edgware Road and eastward extensions by both completed the Circle Line of today by 1884.

Once the had started there was no stopping it and the search was on for further avenues of expansion. The obvious route was again to the east, where the oldest section of today’s Underground was ready and waiting. Twenty years before the ‘Met’ steamed into history, Sir Marc Brunel and his famous son Isambard, had built the Tunnel between and Wapping.

The first such structure under water anywhere in the world. 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 was only needed during the 1990s.

Originally designed for horse-drawn traffic, it opened in 1843 for pedestrians, became a railway tunnel in 1869 and now carries the Line. The Brunel Engine House Museum, behind tube station, tells the story of this unusual tunnel: one time banquet hall, shopping centre, and fairground. In 1870, another sub- railway opened, with a cable-hauled line between the Tower of London and Bermondsey.

In a reverse of the Tunnel’s fortunes, this failed as an Underground line, was converted for pedestrian use after just a few months and closed altogether when Tower Bridge station opened in 1894.

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 10th, 2008 at 12:19 pm and is filed under UK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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