London underground monument tube station

1.

LONDON UNDERGROUND
Once the cut and cover system of construction had been
The world's first underground railway, between Paddington
Construction of the
Metropolitan Railway
near King's Cross
station, 1861
(Bishop's Road) and Farringdon Street was opened by the
Metropolitan Railway on 10th January 1863. The initial
section was six km (nearly four miles) in length, and with
trains hauled by steam engines 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 cove
method, which involved excavating a trench - usually in the middle of a
roadway - then covering the tracks with a brick-lined tunnel and finally
restoring the surface.
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
Regent Street London
London Railway, which ran for 5.2 km (3.25 miles) from
Underground
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 deeplevel 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,
London
Underground
station being used
as an air-raid
shelter
followed two years later by the Central London Railway, known
as the “Two-penny 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.
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.
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 needed
during 1990s. 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.
The Tube in London
Monument tube
station in London
The Underground expanded rapidly between the
wars, reaching Ealing Broadway in 1920,
Edgware in 1924 and Morden in 1926. 1933 saw
the Piccadilly extended to Uxbridge and
Cockfosters, and the District to Upminster.
Up and down
escalators at
Canary Wharf,
one of London's
most recent
Underground
station
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.
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.
Typical London
Tube train
leaving station