When did the London Underground open and what was the first line? | How It Works Magazine When did the London Underground open and what was the first line? By How It Works Team · 2 years ago By the mid-19th century, London’s roads had become choked with traffic. Charles Pearson, the solicitor to the City of London, promoted a solution, which was to run a railway under the streets. The Metropolitan Railway opened on 10 January 1863 and became the world’s first underground railway. It used steam locomotives with special condensing engines designed to limit smoke in the tunnels. Five years after the Metropolitan Line opened, the District Line joined up with it, creating the Circle Line. Next to arrive was the Northern Line in 1880, followed by the Waterloo & City Line. The Central Line began operating in 1900 before the Bakerloo and Piccadilly Lines started taking passengers in 1906. Over half a century passed before the Victoria Line was unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II in 1969, with the Jubilee becoming the latest addition in 1977. Oh, daddy, when did the London Underground open?

| Christian Wolmar 10 January 4, 2013 Christian Says Oh, daddy, when did the London Underground open? On Thursday, January 10, the London Underground is 150 years old. It is a fantastic milestone, the anniversary of the world’s first underground railway and the only one ever to have been operated by steam. The first line, between Praed Street and Farringdon was operated by the Metropolitan Railway, which has given its name to this wonderfully effective mode of transport that has ensured, in many ways, that cities retain their integrity and their density. The Underground’s amazing influence on London, its instant popularity, its rapid spread and its remarkable safety record are all to be celebrated and, indeed, I will be giving two talks on Thursday at separate events to make the occasion. And on Sunday 13th, there will be a special steam ride along the Circle Line which will clearly give a few passing tourists a bit of a surprise. However, there is one slightly irritating aspect of the celebrations. For some reason, Transport for London has hooked on the idea that January 9th is the key date.

There was, indeed, a train with MPs and dignitaries, and a banquet at Farringdon station, on January 9th 1863, but the official opening was the following day when more than 30,000 Londoners travelled, for free, on the railway that was just under five miles long. Why TfL has chosen to celebrate a bigwigs booze up rather than the real openning of the world’s first mass transit system is something of a mystery. Is it, perhaps, reflective of these elitist times? Diamond Geezer, a great name for a blog, has clarified it in much more detail – scroll down Book plug: My book, The Subterranean Railway, how the Underground changed London, has just been updated and reprinted for the anniversary, but is still a bargain at £9 99. Email me via this site if you want a signed copy. RicPou Even now with Overground openings, TfL only invite the bigwigs.

Mere mortals like me who put forward some of the ideas back in 1997, YES 1997, are brushed aside, and then their PR people get upperty when I wander up and castigate Boris, McLoughlin or Hendy about the failure to secure electrification of the Gospel Oak to Barking line or correctly prioitise further incremental improvements on the North London Line. TfL are a law unto themselves, and occasionally have their head in the clouds, £150 or £180 for a steam train ride is just a disgraceful rip off. Greg Tingey RicPou is probably correct They (especially LUL) are much more interested in loud, repetitive useless “announcements” than actually helping mere passengers, for example. Can’t & won’t be told is very much their current ethos. Steve “Why TfL has chosen to celebrate a bigwigs booze up rather than the real opening of the world’s first mass transit system is something of a mystery.” Because the current mayor would approve? Steve While I understand your frustration, without TfL there would be no Overground. Watch this space re electrification and capacity enhancements.

Brimstone52 It seems that by quoting the 9th, they are commemorating the first passenger carrying trip. Pedantically they are correct. But as you say, what a shame they are not celebrating the opening to the public. Since it would have been “toffs” on the first run, and attending the celebratory soiree-up, I’d guess that why Boris and his ilk approved it. Phil A brief history of the Underground A brief history of the Underground From its creation to the present day, London Underground's 150-year history has been an eventful one.

London Underground milestones Constructed by Sir Marc Brunel and his son Isambard, the Thames Tunnel opens 1863 On 10 January, The Metropolitan Railway opens the world's first underground railway, between Paddington (then called Bishop's Road) and Farringdon Street 1868 The first section of the Metropolitan District Railway, from South Kensington to Westminster (now part of the District and Circle lines), opens 1869 The first steam trains travel through the Brunels' Thames Tunnel 1880 Running from the Tower of London to Bermondsey, the first Tube tunnel opens 1884 The Circle line is completed 1890 On 18 December, The City and South London Railway opens the world's first deep-level electric railway. It runs from King William Street in the City of London, under the River Thames, to Stockwell 1900 The Prince of Wales opens the Central London Railway from Shepherd's Bush to Bank (the 'Twopenny Tube'). This is now part of the Central line 1902 The Underground Electric Railway Company of London (known as the Underground Group) is formed.

By the start of WWI, mergers had brought all lines - except the Metropolitan line 1905 District and Circle lines become electrified 1906 Baker Street & Waterloo Railway (now part of the Bakerloo line) opens and runs from Baker Street to Kennington Road (now Lambeth North). Great Northern, Piccadilly & Brompton Railway (now part of the Piccadilly line) opens between Hammersmith and Finsbury Park 1907 Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway (now part of the Northern line) opens and runs from Charing Cross to Golders Green and Highgate (now Archway). Albert Stanley (later Lord Ashfield) is appointed General Manager of the Underground Electric Railway Company of London Limited 1908 The name 'Underground' makes its first appearance in stations, and the first electric ticket-issuing machine is introduced.

This year also sees the first appearance of the famous roundel symbol 1911 London's first escalators are installed at Earl's Court station 1929 The last manually-operated doors on Tube trains are replaced by air-operated doors 1933 The Underground Group and the Metropolitan Railway become part of the London Passenger Transport Board, taking control of all the Capital's railway, bus, tram, trolleybus and coach services Harry Beck presents the first diagram of the Underground map 1940 Between September 1940 and May 1945, most Tube station platforms are used as air raid shelters.

Some, like the Piccadilly line, Holborn - Aldwych branch, are closed to store British Museum treasures 1948 The London Passenger Transport Board was nationalised and now becomes the London Transport Executive 1952 The first aluminium train enters service on the District line 1961 Sees the end of the steam and electric locomotive haulage of London Transport passenger trains 1963 The London Transport Executive becomes the London Transport Board, reporting directly to the Minister of Transport 1969 The Queen opens the Victoria line 1970 The London Transport Executive takes over the Underground and the Greater London area bus network, reporting to Greater London Council 1971 The last steam shunting and freight locomotive is withdrawn from service The Victoria line extends to Brixton 1975 A fatal accident on the Northern line at Moorgate kills 43 people.

New safety measures were introduced 1977 The Queen opens Heathrow Central station (Terminals 1 2 3) on the Piccadilly line 1979 The Prince of Wales opens the Jubilee line 1980 A museum about the birthplace of modern urban transportation, called Brunel Engine House, opens to the public 1983 Dot matrix train destination indicators introduced on platforms.

1984 The Hammersmith & City and the Circle lines convert to one-person operation 1986 The Piccadilly line is extended to serve Heathrow Terminal 4 1987 A tragic fire at King's Cross station kills 31 people 1989 New safety and fire regulations are introduced following the Fennell Report into the King's Cross fire 1992 The London Underground Customer Charter is launched 1993 Reconstruction work on Angel station ended Work started on the extended Jubilee line from Green Park to Stratford 1994 Penalty fares are introduced London Underground takes over the Waterloo & City line and responsibility for the stations on the Wimbledon branch of the District line from Putney Bridge to Wimbledon Park Aldwych station, and the Central line branch from Epping to Ongar closes 1999 London Underground is restructured in preparation for Public Private Partnership The extended Jubilee line opens, offering through services from Stanmore to Stratford 2003 The Oyster card is introduced Busking is legalised 2005 52 people are killed in bomb attacks on three Tube trains and a bus on 7 July 2007 The Tube carries one billion

 passengers in a year for the first time 14 former Silverlink stations transfer to London Underground (LU) The East London line closes for rebuilding and extension as part of new London Overground network 2008 Piccadilly line extension to Heathrow Terminal 5 opens Metronet transfers to TfL control 2009 The Circle line changes shape LU is named Best Metro Europe 2010 The Queen visits Aldgate station LU achieves Carbon Trust Standard The first air-conditioned, walk-through Underground train runs on the Metropolitan line Through services replace the Chesham shuttle 2011 A full fleet of brand new Victoria Line trains become operational; Green Park becomes step-free to provide easier access to the Victoria, Piccadilly and Jubilee lines in time for the Olympics 150 facts for 150 years of the London Tube | The Independent History 150 facts for 150 years of the London Tube From 'suicide pits' to the 'Tubites': collected trivia about the capital's Victorian subterranean transport system in celebration of its Sesquicentennial Wednesday 9 January 2013 11:59 BST Click to follow 150 facts for 1

50 years of the London Tube 1/28 The London Tube is celebrating its 150th anniversary Getty Images Victorian tile signs have been updated with more modern ones in some stations Getty Images London Mayor Boris Johnson travelling on the Tube Getty Images Bank station during the London 2012 Olympics GettyImages Oyster cards were introduced on the Tube in 2003 Getty Images The entrance to Westminster Underground with Big Ben in the background Getty Images 9/28 Shoppers keen to catch the Boxing Day sale queue outside Bond Street for the Tube station to open early AM Getty Images The Tube's famously dirt-covering patterned seat fabric Getty Images A woman at Oxford Circus station Getty Images 12/28 World War II, 25th, September, 1940, Members of the public huddle together in a London underground station Getty Images London Underground workers building the Piccadilly Line extension at Turnpike Lane in 1930 Getty Images 14/28 Queen Elizabeth II travels on a tube train after the official opening ceremony of London Underground's Victoria Line in 1969 Getty Images 15/28 Mayor of London Boris Johnson at the opening of the ticket hall at King's Cross

 St Pancras Station in 2009 PA 16/28 17/28 Emergency services at Chancery Lane Underground Station in London after a tube train derailed in 2003 PA 18/28 In this file picture taken on September 4, 2007 passengers jostle to enter the Underground station at Waterloo Station in central London, as commuters battled with severe transport disruption to get to work as unions staged a second day of strikes on the capital's underground system AFP 19/28 London resident Jean Farrow, 36, one of the first directly recruited female drivers sitting at the front of a tube train at Hammersmith station PA Londoners take shelter in the London Underground during the Blitz PA David Cameron travelling by tube on the Underground to the O2 Arena in London PA 22/28 A London Transport official showing the Prince of Wales the controls in the driver's car of a Jubilee Line train in 1979 PA Passengers on the London Underground in 1955 PA 24/28 Lord Ashfield handing over the silver key to Col.

Moore Brabazon during the opening of the Northern line, London in 1926 PA 25/28 Torchbearer and London Underground employee John Light carrying the Olympic Flame onto an underground train at Wimbledon Station, London PA The fire-damaged escalators at King's Cross underground station in London in 1987 PA Two 'buskers' entertain travellers by playing musical instruments on the London Underground in central London AFP An underground train heads into Central London on the Piccadilly Line on day of winter AFP The London Tube is celebrating its 150th anniversary Today it is 150 years since the first Tube journey. Here’s a fascinating fact for each year of its operation: The visionaries One of the leading visionaries of underground railways was Londoner Charles Pearson (1793-1862), who first envisaged a Fleet Valley rail tunnel in 1845. Pearson also campaigned for the removal of an inscription on the Monument blaming the Great Fire of London on Catholics and the overturning of the ban on Jews becoming brokers in the City of London.

John Fowler (1817-98) was the man tasked with designing the engineering solutions to Pearson’s idea for the first underground railway. Fowler’s other works include the Forth Railway Bridge. Oxford Circus station was designed by Harry Bell Measures (1862-1940), who established his career by designing some of the grandest homes in the capital. The architect who engineered most of the District line was John Wolfe-Barry (1836-1918), who also designed Tower Bridge. In 1843 the Thames Tunnel was completed and opened. It was designed by Marc Brunel (Isambard Kingdom’s father) and was the first tunnel ever to be built under a navigable river. It’s now part of the London Overground line. Tube Firsts The journey of the first Tube train took place on 9 January 1863. The first Tube line was built and financed by a private company, the Metropolitan Railway. The Tube’s first escalator was installed at Earl’s Court in 1911, featuring a diagonal finish to the stairway, meaning the right foot reached the top moments before the left.

In 1907 a spiral escalator opened at Holloway Road. Getting bigger In 1884 there were over 800 trains running around all or part of the Inner Circle every day. A full journey on the City and South London Railway (now part of the Northern Line), from Stockwell to the City, took just 18 minutes. Between 1891 and 1893 five more Tube railways under London were authorised by Parliament. In 1896 the Glasgow District Subway opened. It was the only complete underground railway opened in the UK outside of London. The Waterloo and City line was the only other line to be built before the turn of the century. The Great Northern and City line (between Moorgate and Finsbury Park) was mostly completed by 1902. The tunnels on the Central line twist and turn because they follow the curves of London’s medieval street plan. There is a prevalent north/south divide on the Underground; less than 10 per cent of stations are south of the Thames. The Underground was funded entirely by private companies until the 1930s.

Building works It took 21 years (from 1863 to 1884) to complete the Inner Circle of tube lines in central London. London’s current Crossrail development is Europe’s biggest construction project, as well as its most expensive. If completed on time it will have taken nine years for Crossrail to be completed. Just 70 years after it was first proposed. Each tunnel-boring machine for Crossrail costs £10m and the trains will cost another £1bn. Kennington is the only surviving City and South London Railway station that remains close to its original condition, still featuring a domed roof. Funding for a deep-level “Route C” line, better known as the Victoria line, was approved in 1955. The grand opening of the Victoria line, or “London’s Pride”, was on 7 March 1969. Queen Elizabeth II was the first reigning monarch to take the Tube, when she took the inaugural ride on the Victoria line from Green Park. Accidents and incidents The first accidents on the underground occurred within a couple of months of opening in 1863, involving slow-moving collisions at Farringdon Street station.

The space below tube tracks are colloquially known as “suicide pits” as they help reduce the chance of death or serious injury should someone jump in front of a train. Around 50 passengers a year commit suicide on the Underground, however the Jubilee line is the only line to feature protective screens along the platforms. Smoking was finally banned across the Tube network following the King’s Cross fire in November 1987, which killed 31 people. Nicknames When the Circle Line opened in 1884, the experience of riding it was described in The Times as “a form of mild torture”. The “Tube” became a proper name for the first time in the early 1900s, after the Central London Railway (now the Central Line) was nicknamed the “Twopenny Tube”. The “Twopenny Tube” nickname was conceived by the Daily Mail, five days after it opened. The claustrophobic carriages on the early underground trains became known as “padded cells”.

Going both ways In 1903 the Central London line became the first railway in Britain to be worked entirely by multiple-unit trains – meaning the trains no longer needed to be turned around when they reached each end of the line. By 1905 all the Tube lines had adopted multiple-unit trains. Shopping The “Twopenny Tube” line significantly boosted profits to shops based around Oxford Street and Regent Street. In 1909 Selfridges department store lobbied (unsuccessfully) to get Bond Street station renamed after itself. More successful was Brent Cross. Brent station was named after the shopping centre when it opened nearby in 1976. The Central London Railway released a ladies only Christmas shopping ticket as a special promotion in 1912. First World War During the First World War, women began to make up staff shortages on the Underground. When Maida Vale station opened on 6 June 1915 it was entirely staffed by women. By the end of 1917 the Metropolitan Railway had 552 women on its staff.

Police reports of German bomb raids on London in 1917 estimated that 300,000 people were taking shelter in Tube stations. A white marble memorial at Baker Street station commemorates the 137 Metropolitan Railway employees killed during the First World War. The extension of the Piccadilly line northwards was largely down to passenger pressure; In 1923, a 30,000-signature petition was delivered to the Ministry of Transport. Design In the 1860s only basic signage – the station name and exit – was provided on the Underground. One of the first rail maps, produced by the District line in 1892, featured the slogan “Time Is Money” on the cover. The Tube’s world-famous red circle logo, known as the “roundel”, first appeared in 1908. Around 60 stations had the Metropolitan line’s red diamond instead of the “roundel” between 1919 and the 1970s. The Underground Sans font, still used in a modified form for all the Tube’s posters and design, was created by Edward Johnston in 1916.

In 1907 a photographic survey was taken of all station exteriors in order to establish ways in which a more uniform design style could be achieved. Etiquette posters warning people to move down the car and to let passengers off first have been produced since the early years of the Tube, some by celebrated cartoonist George Morrow. The Victoria line commissioned artists to produce original tile motifs for each station, including the seven trees which give Seven Sisters its name. The map The first free Underground map was released in 1908, a joint marketing enterprise produced collaboratively by the various private companies which ran the separate lines. The classic diagrammatic Underground map designed by Harry Beck was first produced in 1933, inspired by electrical circuit diagrams. The map was originally offered to the Underground by Harry Beck in 1931, but it was rejected as it was considered too radical for the public. Harry Beck was paid 10 guineas, or £10.50, for his Tube map design. Beck spent two years pestering the Underground to print a trial run – which was enthusiastically received by Londoners.

Beck remained very involved with changes and updates to his map for over 25 years until eventually falling out with London Transport. In 1959 his name was removed from the map, until the 1990s, when he was once again acknowledged as its creator and “H.C. Beck” reappeared on the large-format station maps. In 2006 the London Underground map came second in a BBC competition to find the public’s favourite British design of the 20th century. In 2009 the angular representation of the river Thames was briefly removed from the map, but quickly replaced after a public outcry. Property Chiltern Court, the largest apartment block in London, was opened over Baker Street station in 1929. You can buy a three-bed flat there today for £1.1m. From 1933, London Transport was responsible for an area of 2,000 square miles within a 20- to 30-mile radius of Charing Cross. Once formed, London Transport inherited an underground railway network covering 227 miles and carrying some 415 million passengers each year.

Mind the gap The original recording of “Mind the gap” was made in 1968 featuring the voice of sound recordist Peter Lodge. While most lines still use Peter Lodge’s recording of “Mind the gap”, others use a recording by voice artist Emma Clarke. The Piccadilly line uses the voice of Tim Bentinck, better known as David Archer from The Archers. Art Scottish sculptor Eduardo Paolozzi designed the mosaic murals at Tottenham Court Road station, which were completed in 1984. In the 90s, due to a boom in graffiti, the “silver” tube trains were replaced with the red, white and blue painted ones still seen today. Southwark Station’s blue cone wall, built as part of the Jubilee line extension’s new generation of stations, was inspired by an 1816 stage set for The Magic Flute. Since 2003, musicians require a licence to busk on the Tube. The ceramics on the City and South London Railway (now part of the Northern line) were inspired by the designs of artist William Morris. Architects Charles Holden is perhaps one of the most prominent station architects.

He based Arnos Grove on Stockholm Public Library and Gants Hill was inspired by the Moscow Metro. All 46 stations designed by Leslie Green have distinctive tile patterns to help regular customers recognise them. Green’s stations – such as Covent Garden – were all steel-clad to allow premises to be built on top of them. Sir Norman Foster designed Canary Wharf station, which opened in 1999 as part of the Jubilee line extension. Prices The original trains had three different classes, costing three, four and six pence for a single journey. l A single cash journey in Zone 1 now costs £4.50. The Oyster card touch ticketing system was introduced in 2002. If you paid a full cash fare between Covent Garden and Leicester Square (0.16 miles) it works out at over £28-a-mile. Biggest, longest, lift-iest Each year, every Tube train travels 114,500miles/184,269km. The average speed of a train is 33km/20.5 miles per hour. Only 45 per cent of the network is actually in tunnels. There are 426 escalators.

Waterloo has the most: 23. The total number of lifts, including four stair lifts, on the Underground network is 164. The deepest lift shaft is at Hampstead station and is 55.2m. The shortest lift shaft is at King’s Cross and is just 2.3m. The total number of carriages in the Underground’s fleet is 4,134. The total number of stations currently served is 270. The total number of staff on the Underground is approximately 19,000. Baker Street is the station with the most platforms: 10. The long and short of it The total length of the Tube network is 402km/249 miles. The longest continuous tunnel runs between East Finchley and Morden (via Bank) and is 27.8km/17.25 miles long. The longest distance between two stations is between Chesham and Chalfont and Latimer on the Metropolitan line, which are 6.3km apart. The shortest distance between two stations is from Leicester Square to Covent Garden on the Piccadilly line, which are a mere 300m apart.

The longest journey you can take without a change is 59.4km from West Ruislip to Epping on the Central line. The longest escalator on the network is at Angel and is 60m long, with a vertical rise of 26.5m. The shortest escalator is at Stratford, taking passengers up just 4.1m. The deepest station below street level in central London is Bank, which is 41.4m deep. In outer London, Hampstead is the deepest station below street level, at 58.5m. Passenger numbers The first-ever day of public service was enjoyed by 40,000 passengers. In 1908, the first full year of operation for all three lines, the Hampstead Tube (now part of the Northern Line) carried 25 million passengers, the Bakerloo 28 million and the Piccadilly 34.5 million. Passenger numbers grew rapidly and by 1918 the Underground was carrying 70 per cent more people than in 1914. Currently 1,107 million passengers are carried every year.

The busiest station in London is Waterloo, which has 57,000 people entering during the three-hour morning peak. 82 million passengers travel through Waterloo each year. During 2011/12, London Underground carried a record number of passengers, with 1.171 billion journeys made. This is 64 million more than in 2010/11. Speeds In central London, trains cannot drive faster than 30-40mph because of the short distances between stations. The Victoria line can reach speeds of up to 50mph because the stations are further apart. The Metropolitan line has the fastest train speeds, sometimes reaching over 60mph. Ghosts A prototype smokeless locomotive built in 1861 by Robert Stephenson and Co never made it into service, earning it the nickname “Fowler’s Ghost”. Disused stations, known as “ghost” stations, such as those at Aldwych, Down Street and Lord’s, often find alternate work as film and TV sets. A ghost named Annie Naylor, a dead milliner, aka the “Screaming Spectre”, is said to haunt Farringdon station.

Likewise, actor William Terris “haunts” Covent Garden. Second World War Rapid expansion of the Underground services into London’s suburbs throughout the 30s were brought abruptly to a halt with the outbreak of the Second World War. The Underground was central to evacuating children and expectant mothers from London to the countryside in 1939. Within a couple of days, London Transport successfully evacuated 600,000 vulnerable Londoners. Brompton Road station on the Piccadilly line, which was closed in 1934, was converted into an underground Operations Room for London’s anti-aircraft control during the war. During the war, signs warning passengers to carry their gas marks were on display at every Underground station. Despite having been previously used as shelters in 1917, the government felt that the Underground should be used for transport, not shelter. Posters were put up warning passengers that Underground stations “must not be used as air-raid shelters”. On 7 September 1940, the East End experienced the first of many heavy bombing raids. People rushed to the Underground stations and staff were unable to resist.

Many people got round the Tube sheltering ban by buying cheap penny travel tickets and then refusing to leave the platforms. Trains continued to run throughout the blitz, leading to especially crowded stations mixed with travellers and those seeking shelter. The press described those sheltering in the Underground as “Tubites”; London Transport called them “squatters”. It wasn’t long before around 177,000 people were sheltering in the Underground’s deep-level stations every night. “Droppers” would get into the station early and drop items of clothing against the wall to reserve the prime spots, which would then be sold for up to half a crown each. Some communities of shelterers on the Underground set up committees and newsletters to campaign for better facilities. On 8 October 1940 the government announced a U-turn and ended the unenforceable ban on sheltering in the Tube. For Christmas 1940, London Transport staff distributed over 11,000 toys, presented by America’s Air Raid Relief Fund to children sheltering in stations. Numbered bunk beds and a ticketing system were quickly installed to reduce queuing and stop “droppers”.

By the end of the war there were over 22,000 beds installed in Underground stations. A popular war-time addition to the Underground was the “Tube Refreshment’s Service” which distributed seven tons of food to those sheltering every night. Between September 1940 and May 1941, 198 people were killed when Tube shelters were hit directly by bombs. One of the worst bombing incidents to affect the Underground shelters was on 14 October, when a bomb pierced the road surface, killing 64 people sheltering on the platform below. On 13 January 1941, Bank station was hit, killing 56 people. Details of the incident were strictly censored. The worst single incident to occur in London during the war was on 3 March 1943, when 173 people were crushed to death in a stairwell at Bethnal Green station – not a single bomb was dropped on the capital that night. Around 200 London Transport workers were killed on duty during World War Two. Despite a ban on geographic transport maps during the war, the Tube map was still permitted, presumably because it wouldn’t have been much help to Nazi paratroopers.

Nature London Underground manages about 10 per cent of green spaces in London, playing host to everything from deer to grass snakes. It has been estimated that around half a million mice are living across the Underground network. The mosquitoes that live in the Tube tunnels have evolved into a unique species known for its voracious biting. They were named Culex pipiens molestus by biologists. The website “Animals on the Underground” has made 35 different animals shapes from Beck’s Tube map. Events In 1956, to fill staff shortages, London Transport began to directly recruit in Barbados and Jamaica. By 1969 over 4,000 staff from the West Indies had been recruited by London Transport. The Tube celebrated its centenary in 1963 with a series of events including a parade of underground trains at Neasden depot. In 1978 Hannah Dadds became the first woman to be employed as an Underground train driver. The Tube usually only runs for 24 hours during New Year, however it also stayed open all night for the 2012 Olympic opening and closing ceremonies. Three babies have been born in the London Underground.

The most recent was a boy, born in December 2008. All these facts are taken from Underground: How the Tube Shaped London by David Bownes, Oliver Green and Sam Mullins (Allen Lane, £25); London Underground by Design by Mark Ovenden (Particular, £20) and Underground Overground: A Passenger’s History of the Tube (Profile, £8.99). All out now. 1906 - Elephant & Castle station opens 1915 - The line is extended from Baker Street to Queen's Park 1939 - The Bakerloo line takes over the Stanmore branch of the Metropolitan line 1979 - The Jubilee line opens and, after 40 years, the Stanmore branch of the Bakerloo line closes 1982 - The four peak period trains between Queen's Park and Watford Junction are withdrawn 1989 - Services between Queen's Park and Harrow & Wealdstone restart Central Line The Central Line, originally called the Central London Railway, opened on 30 July 1900 as a cross-London route from Bank to Shepherd's Bush.

Popular from the start, part of its success stemmed from the cost: a flat fare of two old pence to travel. This inspired the press to call it the 'Tuppenny Tube.' In 1908, London hosted the Franco-British exhibition, the largest fair of its kind, which attracted 8 million visitors. At the time, the exhibition site was little more than a cluster of white buildings with no official name but when the Central line extended to the site, it officially became known as White City. In the 1990s, the Central line was upgraded to automatic operation, making it the second Underground line, after the Victoria line in the 1960s, to use this technology. Key Central line dates 1900 - Central London Railway opens 1908 - The line extends west to Wood Lane to support the White City Exhibition 1912 - The line extends east from Bank to Liverpool Street 1920 - The line extends west to Ealing Broadway 1945 - After the war, new tracks next to to the main line railway start to be used.

They run from North Acton to West Ruislip and include new tunnels from Liverpool Street to Leyton 1994 - The Epping to Ongar shuttle service closes, due to low passenger numbers Circle line Although the first circular service started in 1884, the Circle line as we know it didn't really begin until the 1930s. The 'Circle line' name first appeared on a poster in 1936 but took another 13 years for it to get its own, separate line on the Tube map. The tracks used by the Circle line were run by the Metropolitan Railway and District Railway, two companies who couldn't agree on how to run the line. Their differences initially meant that District Railway ran the clockwise trains and Metropolitan Railway, the anti-clockwise trains. In December 2009, the Circle line was broken and replaced by an end-to-end service between Hammersmith and Edgware Road, via Aldgate. Key Circle line dates 1884 - The first circular service begins 1868 - The Paddington to Farringdon (Metropolitan Railway) line extends to South Kensington.

The District Railway opens its new line from South Kensington to Westminster at the same time 1884 - The District Railway line finally extends to Mark Lane (now Tower Hill). It meets the Metropolitan Railway line to create a full circle 1905 - The line is electrified 1933 - Metropolitan Railway and District Railway become part of the London Passenger Transport Board 1936 - The 'Circle line' name appears on a poster for the first time 1949 - The Circle line gets its own line on the Tube map 2009 - The Circle line is broken and replaced by and end-to-end service District line The District line first opened on Christmas Eve 1868, between South Kensington and Westminster. In the years following, it extended both east and west, even going as far as Windsor. In 1883, the line was extended from Ealing Broadway to Windsor and has run services as far as Southend, during its time. Uxbridge and Hounslow were part of the District line until they were transferred to the Piccadilly line in 1933 and 1964.

Key District line dates 1868 - The first section of what is now the District line begins. It runs between South Kensington and Westminster 1869 - New tracks open between Gloucester Road and West Brompton 1874 - The line extends to Hammersmith, Richmond in 1877 and Ealing Broadway in 1879 1885 - The two-year old Ealing to Windsor service ends 1884 - The line extends to Mark Lane (now Tower Hill) 1910 - The line extends to Uxbridge, following an earlier extension to Hounslow (in 1884) Hammersmith & City line Intended as a feeder to the Metropolitan line, with the extension running through fields on the fringes of suburbia to Hammersmith, The Hammersmith and City Railway opened on 13 June 1864. It wasn't until 1988, however, that it gained independence to become the Hammersmith & City line in its own right.

Jointly run by the Great Western Railway (GWR) and Metropolitan Railway (MR), when it opened, the only stations on the two-mile long track were Notting Hill (now Ladbroke Grove) and Shepherd's Bush. Since the Circle line began running trains on the 'loop' in 2009, the Hammersmith & City line no longer has any unique stations. Every one of its 29 stations is shared with another tube line. Key Hammersmith & City line dates 1863 - The Metropolitan Railway opens between Farringdon and Paddington 1864 - Together with Great Western Railways, Metropolitan Railway extends the line to Hammersmith 1864 - Services to Addison Road (now Kensington Olympia), via the curve at Latimer Road, begin. Following bomb damage in 1940, this service is suspended and doesn't restart after the war 1869 - A new London and South Western line opens between north of Addison Road and Richmond, via Ravenscourt Park.

The new Hammersmith station (at Grove Road) means the old terminus is re-sited 1884 - The line extends east to Whitechapel 1906 - The line is electrified 1936 - Trains are extended over the former District Railway line to Barking 1988 - The line becomes the Hammersmith & City line in its own right Jubilee line Although a number of Jubilee line stations are among the Underground's newest, the line also serves some stations that originally opened over 100 years ago. Inaugurated on 1 May 1979, the Jubilee line linked new tunnels across central London (stretching for 4 kilometres between Baker Street and Charing Cross with the former Bakerloo line branch north of Baker Street to Stanmore). The northern end of the line had previously been part of the Metropolitan Railway, before transferring to the Bakerloo line in 1939 when a new section of twin tube tunnels between Baker Street and Finchley Road (including stations at St John's Wood and Swiss Cottage) also opened.

From 1979 Charing Cross was the line's southern terminus for two decades, but further extension to the Jubilee line was recommended in the East London Rail Study in 1989 with Royal Assent to the Bill obtained in March 1992. Work started on the £3.5bn project to extend the Jubilee line in 1993. The Prime Minister at the time, John Major drove the first pile of the extension at a start-of-work ceremony at Canary Wharf on 8 December 1993. The extension from Green Park to Stratford was opened in three phases during 1999. The extended Jubilee line was finally joined to the existing line on 20 November 1999, although Westminster was the last station on the line to be opened on 22 December 1999. Since its opening, the Jubilee line extension has facilitated and contributed to the significant growth of London's Docklands as a centre for business, residential and leisure activity. Metropolitan line Opened in 1863, The Metropolitan Railway between Paddington and Farringdon was the first, urban, underground railway in the world.

An extension from Baker Street to Swiss Cottage in 1868, however, put an end to this claim to fame. With the growth of suburban areas in the north west of London, Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Middlesex (dubbed 'Metroland'), in the 20th century, Metropolitan Railway spotted a marketing opportunity: by promoting dream homes in the countryside, they could also highlight their own fast, rail services to get people there. As the owners of surplus land, Metropolitan Railway were in a position to branch out into real estate, and by 1919 they were developing housing under the name of Metropolitan Railway Country Estates Limited. Metroland was immortalised in the 1973 BBC TV documentary, narrated by the then Poet Laureate, Sir John Betjeman.

Key Metropolitan line dates 1863 - The line opens between Paddington and Farringdon 1868 - The line extends from Baker Street to Swiss Cottage 1892 - Line extensions reaches Aylesbury 1904 - The Uxbridge branch opens 1905 - The first electric trains appear and are gradually introduced across the whole line, apart from the line beyond Rickmansworth 1925 - The Watford branch opens 1932 - Another branch, to Stanmore opens, but this becomes part of the Bakerloo line in 1939 1961 - The steam trains operating north of Rickmansworth stop as the line is electrified to Amersham and Chesham. Services beyond Amersham are taken over by British Rail (now Chiltern Railways) 2012 - A new fleet of electric trains are introduced, the first on the Underground to feature air conditioning and full-length, walk-through interiors Northern line The Northern line, opened in 1937, was created out of two separate railways: the City and South London Railway, and the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway.

It expanded a little but WWII slowed the expansions down. Scheduled plans to extend to Mill Hill, Brockley Hill, Elstree and Bushey Heath (known as the Northern Heights plan), suffered post-war restrictions and never recovered. These plans were finally dismissed in 1954. Key Northern line dates 1890 - City & South London Railway opens - it runs from King William Street (near Bank) to Stockwell 1907 - Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway (Hampstead Railway, as it's called) opens.

It runs from the Strand (Charing Cross) to Golders Green, with a branch from Camden Town to Highgate 1921 - Hampstead Railway extends to Edgware 1922 - City and South London Railway links to the Hampstead Railway at Camden Town 1926 - City and South London/Hampstead Railway extends south to Morden and Kennington 1933 - City and South London/Hampstead Railway become the Northern line 1939 - 1941 The new Northern line extends between Archway and East Finchley, High Barnet and Mill Hill East 1975 - The tunnelled link between Finsbury Park and Moorgate, via Essex Road, is transferred to British Rail (now First Capital Connect) Piccadilly line The Piccadilly line opened as the Great Northern, Piccadilly & Brompton Railway on 15 December 1906 and it ran between Finsbury Park and Hammersmith. The line remained much the same until the 1930s when it expanded rapidly, incorporating stations which are now regarded as classic examples of period architecture.

Arnos Grove, Southgate and Sudbury Town, for example, are listed buildings. The development of Heathrow Airport has also been a reason for expansion, with Heathrow Terminals 1-5 opening between 1977 and 2008. When Terminal 5 opened in 2008, it became the first stretch of new Underground railway in London since the Jubilee line extension in 1999.

Key Piccadilly line dates 1906 - The line opens between Finsbury Park and Hammersmith 1907 - A branch line from Holborn to Aldwych opens 1932 to 1933 - The line extends to South Harrow, Arnos Grove, Hounslow West, Uxbridge and Cockfosters 1977 - Heathrow Terminals 1, 2 and 3 open 1986 - The Heathrow service becomes a loop with the opening of Terminal 4 1994 - The Aldwych branch of the Piccadilly line closes down because of too few passengers and high costs 2008 - Heathrow Terminal 5 opens Victoria line Built at the end of the 1960s, the main aim of the Victoria line was to connect four, main line terminals: Euston, St. Pancras, King's Cross and Victoria, although its origins go back to 1943. Future hopes for the Victoria line were included in a document called the County of London Plan, but war and post-war constraints mean that the plans continued to be put on hold.

Parliamentary Powers to build the line were obtained in 1955 but difficulties with funding meant that actual construction work didn't start until 1962. The Victoria line opened in stages between 1968 and 1971, and reached areas of north and south London that had never had an Underground station before. The line was the first automatic passenger railway in the world, fully equipped with an Automatic Train Operation system (ATO). Such technology meant that at the touch of a button, the train doors would close and drive automatically to the next station, guided by coded impulses transmitted through the track. The original 1968 line received a complete upgrade in 2012. Waterloo & City line In 1898, the Waterloo & City line (or 'Drain' as it was known), became London's second, deep-level Tube railway. Initially, it was promoted by the London and South Western Railway company, whose trains terminated at Waterloo. The new line's selling point was that it could offer commuters a direct rail link to and from the City of London.

Wooden-built trains ran on the line until 1940 but were replaced by specially-designed, Tube-sized cars based on the technology of the Southern Railway's trains, but these too were eventually replaced in 1994. In the post-war years, the Waterloo & City line became part of British Railways but it transferred to London Underground in 1994, when it became (at that time), the Underground's 12th line. London Underground's history London Underground's history This is an archived page. The tube is an engineering marvel: 150 years in the making, with 253 miles of passageway snaking under the capital, carrying millions of people every day. It's crowded, uncomfortable and expensive - but it defined London. And it's ours. Time Out champions one of the true wonders of the Western World, and pioneers who built it Peter WattsPosted: Tue Apr 17 2007 Commuters at Leytonstone staton around 1900 Image courtesy London Transport Museum ( ) © Transport For London It was, on the face of it, a stupid idea. Running trains, and steam trains at that, in tunnels underneath the London streets.

In 1862, the Times described it as an ‘insult to common sense’ and it was probably right. But the London Underground turned out to be one of the great engineering feats of modern times, the world’s only steam-driven underground railway and the first electrified underground railway. A socially egalitarian and liberating phenomenon, it helped drive London’s rapid expansion and got people to work on time, while providing the city with a bold new identity through impeccable branding that incorporated iconic typography, cartography and architecture. And yet… And yet… It’s fair to say that the Underground remains unloved by Londoners, and it would take a more dishonest contrarian than I to defend the grime, the delays, the heat, the way it’s so busy and unreliable and the fact that, year after year, we are asked to pay more for a service that doesn’t seem to be getting any better, cleaner, quicker or cooler. But that’s a fault of management and decades of underinvestment, not of a system that remains something Londoners should treasure as remarkable, groundbreaking and emphatically ours. West Brompton Underground station in 1876.

Image courtesy London Transport Museum ( ) © Transport For London The story began with Charles Pearson, the first in a succession of underground visionaries. It was he who first proposed the notion of ‘trains in drains’ in 1845, when the railway was a relatively new invention (the first steam passenger service only opened in 1830). Pearson, instrumental in the removal of the anti-Catholic inscription on the foot of the Monument, was a progressive and a pioneer – his persistence helped persuade the House of Commons to approve a bill in 1853 to build a subterranean railway between Paddington and Farringdon. The reason such a hare-brained, experimental scheme received approval was one of necessity. London roads were suffering from terrible overcrowding and the mainline railways all stopped on the fringes of the West End and City thanks to a Royal Commission of 1846 that declared central London a no-go area for railway companies. A method of linking the mainline stations of Paddington, Euston and King’s Cross was needed, and Pearson’s plan fitted the bill.

He helped raise the finance from private investors and the City of London, and excavation began in 1860, with a shallow trench dug beneath Euston Road and then covered over. Thousands of poor residents were displaced in the process. The Metropolitan Line opened for business on January 10 1863, clocking 30,000 passengers on the first day. A celebratory banquet had been held the previous day at Farringdon. Pearson was not among the guests, having passed away the previous year. Another absentee was Prime Minister Lord Palmerston, who was approaching his 80th birthday, and said he wanted to spend as much time above ground as he possibly could (he died two years later). Park Royal's rudimentary station in 1907 Image courtesy London Transport Museum ( ) © Transport For London The Metropolitan was a success, with 11.8 million passengers (the population of London was about 3.2 million) braving the foul, smoke-filled conditions in its first year.

The Metropolitan’s owners claimed the ‘invigorating’ atmosphere ‘provided a sort of health resort for people who suffered from asthma’, but they also allowed drivers to grow beards in a futile bid to filter out the worst of the fumes. A civil servant who had spent time in Sudan said the smell reminded him of a ‘crocodile’s breath’. One attempt to improve conditions saw smoking banned, until an MP objected and insisted that all railways provided a smoking carriage. Smoking was not banned again on the trains until 1985, and at stations until after the King’s Cross fire of 1987, itself the culmination of 30 years of neglect. Among those to benefit most from the new railway were the lowest-paid workers, who were entitled to use a special, cheap pre-6am train. Social journalist Henry Mayhew interviewed some such passengers in 1865, first explaining that ‘this subterranean method of locomotion had always struck us as being the most thoroughly Cockney element of all within the wide range of Cocaigne’.

The labourers he spoke to all voiced their enthusiasm for a service that allowed poorer Londoners to live further out, sparing them a six-mile walk to work and allowing their families to live in two rooms rather than one. As the Metropolitan expanded westwards, it opened up new areas for Londoners to move to, and the overcrowded city d slowly started to expand – one of the reasons that London still has such a relatively low population density. When Hammersmith received its first station in 1864 it was still a village ‘best known for spinach and strawberries’, writes Christian Wolmar in his definitive ‘The Subterranean Railway’ (2004), but it soon became a major interchange. This pattern was repeated throughout the Underground’s history. When the Northern Line hit Morden in 1926, it was a village of 1,000 inhabitants; five years later, its population was 12,600. The success of the Metropolitan led to the building of the District Line along the Victoria Embankment, and then the creation of a Circle Line to link the two.

Unfortunately, the two east-west lines were run by rivals, James Forbes and Edward Watkin, whose perpetual bickering meant the Circle took twenty years to complete. When it was finished in 1884, Watkins’ Met operated trains that ran clockwise, while Forbes’ District controlled those in the other direction; such was the antagonism between the two, the companies refused to sell tickets for their rival line, meaning a passenger might end up paying for 20 stops rather than seven. When the Circle was finally electrified in 1905 the companies used different systems which proved incompatible, resulting in a further three-month delay. Because the Underground was built haphazardly by private investment and with no central planning, there were many such inconsistencies. Some destinations had more than one station, built by competing interests, which explains why there is such a poor interchange at Hammersmith between the Hammersmith & City and District Lines, and why Oxford Circus has two different surface stations on either side of Argyll Street. This is also why there are so many ghost stations on the network – about 40 – built without adequate knowledge of whether they were actually needed.

The entrance to Finsbury Park station in 1909 Image courtesy London Transport Museum ( ) © Transport For London The completion of the Circle Line marked the last of the sub-surface lines, built by the simple, cut-and-cover method. Advances in tunnelling and the use of electrified rails now allowed for the building of deep-level lines that gave birth to the phrase ‘tube’ and allowed London’s network to really connect the dots beneath the capital. The first was the cramped City & South London line from City to the Elephant & Castle, later incorporated into the Northern Line, which was opened in 1890 by the future king Edward VII. This was followed by the Waterloo & City, Central, Bakerloo, Piccadilly and Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead (now the Charing Cross branch of the Northern), all before 1907. This splurge of lines occurred within a narrow window of opportunity after the invention of suitable tunnelling technology and before the appearance of the motorised bus. It was aided by gullible investors (who never quite received the returns they were promised), public demand and London’s favourable geological conditions – the capital’s clay being an ideal substance through which to tunnel.

The last four of these lines were built by American financier Charles Tyson Yerkes, who also controlled the District and was the first person to attempt to realise a unified vision of London’s chaotic underground network. A property speculator with a questionable reputation (he served time in prison in Philadelphia for embezzlement) Yerkes put together numerous complex financial schemes to get his lines built, often using capital from the States, but never got the chance to cash in on his success, dying in 1905. The Circle Line platform at Notting Hill in 1919 Image courtesy London Transport Museum ( ) © Transport For London Yerkes left an extraordinary legacy. While lines such as City & South London never proved popular with the public – something that had much to do with the fact that the trains, or ‘padded cells’, were built without windows because the manufacturers figured there was nothing to see down there – his Central Line was a hit. This was largely because, like the Metropolitan half a century before, it served major transport routes, relieving strain on crowded streets above.

There were drawbacks – the line followed the road pattern because the tunnellers didn’t want to pay compensation to surface landowners, so there were unnecessary kinks – but the Central Line was a groundbreaking service, attracting 100,000 passengers daily. For a start, it only had one class of travel, and one price, hence the nickname the d d Twopenny Tube. It also had some innovative engineering aspects (each station was built atop a slight incline, meaning trains naturally slowed when entering stations and sped up when leaving, while the flat face of the train pushing air in front of it provided much-need ventilation) and carriages were considerably plusher than on the City & South London. Yerkes’ desire for a unified service also led to the introduction of what can be seen as the first attempt at branding on the tube – the Leslie Green-designed distinctive dried-blood-coloured tiles of the surface stations – something pursued by the man who followed. Frank Pick began working for Yerkes’ Underground Electric Railway Limited (UERL), which owned all the underground lines other than the Metropolitan and the Waterloo & City, in 1906.

Over the next 30 years, in partnership with Lord Ashfield, general manager of UERL and future chairman of London Transport, he helped make the tube the ‘most famous and respected transport system in the world’. Historian Nikolaus Pevsner believes Pick’s accomplishments to be greater still: in 1942 he described him as ‘the greatest patron of the arts whom this century has so far produced in England and indeed the ideal patron of our age’. He is certainly one of the few transport gurus to have met Stalin, Hitler and Churchill. Pick’s reputation was based on his eye for design. He introduced the roundel, borrowed from the London General Omnibus Company, but made famous by the tube; he asked calligrapher Edward Johnston to design the tube’s unique font; commissioned beautiful posters by Man Ray, Graham Sutherland and Edward Nash; introduced each line’s distinctive patterned seat-covers or moquettes; appointed architect Charles Holden to design modernist stations, most famously at Arnos Grove; and in 1931 he paid Harry Beck five guineas to come up with a new kind of map that would simplify the most complicated transport system in the world.

All the while, the tube continued to spread east, west, north and even – occasionally – south, and was by 1934 carrying 410 million passengers a year. Pick can be said to be as responsible for the image London projects around the world as Christopher Wren, George Gilbert Scott or Norman Foster. Even today, Transport for London is well aware of the value of the brand, and jealously guards icons such as the roundel and Beck’s map from even the most loving of imitators. Charle's Holden's Oakwood station in 1933 Image courtesy London Transport Museum ( ) © Transport For London Pick’s definition of the tube did not end there. In tandem with Lord Ashfield, he also arranged the integration of London’s various transport systems in 1933 under the umbrella London Transport, ensuring that an underground network that had hitherto been privately funded and unprofitable became publicly supported, thanks in part to Leader of London County Council (and Peter Mandelson’s grandfather) Herbert Morrison.

Finance has always been the failing of the tube, largely because, as Wolmar astutely points out, the early railwaymen ‘were building a fantastic resource for Londoners whose value could never be adequately reflected through the fare box which was their only source of income’. This was as true in the days of private entrepreneur and public ownership as it is with today’s uncomfortable mish-mash, the great experiment of the Public Private Partnership. All too briefly London Transport papered over this failing through a combination of Ashfield and Pick’s acumen and the fact that, following the depression, there was greater confidence in public ownership, and more skill in the manner with which it was executed. But this was soon diluted with the World War II (in which the tube played its own valuable role), after which, rebuilding the country took precedence. Train controller Frederick Barron in the control tower at Upminster depot in 1959. The track diagram has geographically mointed point switches Image courtesy London Transport Museum ( ) © Transport For London Which, more or less, is where we are today.

The tube has acquired only two new lines since Yerkes’ frenzy: the Victoria, which took 20 years from planning to opening in 1968, and the Jubilee, hewn in part from the Bakerloo Line and extended magnificently in 2000. Years of under-investment have taken their toll, and the system looks haggard and worn. Recent years have seen some improvement, but the cost to users has soared. Even the ongoing improvements leave the system, temporarily at least, worse off – with stations closed for months and entire lines closed weekend after weekend, reinforcing the public’s lack of sympathy for this ancient marvel. So it’s no wonder that we look upon the city’s mighty works and despair. But perhaps we should, every now and then at least, reflect on what the city would be like if the tube had never existed, be thankful for the visionaries of the past, and hopeful that their legacy will once more receive the attention and adulation it deserves.

Question: What year did the 'London Underground' open?
Answer: 1863