Journey Underground: 150 years of London’s Tube

Journey Underground: 150 years of London’s Tube
Though Londoners love to knock it, they retain an enduring pride in the Tube, the underground train service, which on January 9th 2013 is 150 years old. Part of London’s heritage, it keeps the city’s 8.2 million inhabitants (plus another few million commuters) on the move, on 249 miles (402 km) of track beneath the bustle of the capital’s busy roads. It was the world’s first subterranean railway — “trains in drains” as the Times newspaper rather disparagingly described it in 1862.
When the first section, the Metropolitan line, opened for business exactly 150 years ago, it was a triumph of engineering, architecture and, above all, imagination — though the thousands of residents displaced by the construction probably didn’t see it that way. Charles Pearson, a city solicitor, was the driving force behind the idea, having first suggested it back in 1845 in response to congestion on London’s streets (sound familiar?). On its first day of operation — January 10th 1863 — the Metropolitan line carried 30,000 people on steam-powered trains and was hailed as a triumph. London’s “underground” railway (only 9.7km/6 miles out of the line’s 66.7km/41.5 miles are actually underground) was born.
Over the next century, the network expanded slowly, often hindered by competing financial interests. The circle line was the 3rd section to be finished, built to link the Metropolitan and the District line, but it took more than 20 years to complete because of arguments between the owners of the two existing lines, James Forbes (District) and Edward Watkin (Metropolitan). This lack of central planning and private sector funding typified the Tube’s development throughout its history.
By the time the Circle line was finished, new tunneling technology meant the new lines could be built deeper underground, abandoning the “cut-and-cover” technique used to build the first three lines. Using city’s clay strata beneath its foundations, ideal for tunneling, and new electrified locomotives that used in parts Siemens Bros technology, new lines and stations were added including the Waterloo & City, Central, Piccadilly, Charing Cross, Euston, and Bakerloo, all operational by 1907. It is said the latter was conceived by a group of businessmen keen to get to and from Lord’s cricket ground to watch the matches as swiftly as possible.
The new tunnels raised the railway network’s nickname, the Tube, from 1890 onward.
About this time, two men, who had a lasting influence on underground, came to prominence. The first was the colourful American financier Charles Tyson Yerkes, who did much to unify the network. One of his projects — the Central line — had sloped inclines to the stations, which naturally slowed the trains on entering and sped them up when they left. His one class and single price for all journeys helped attract 100,000 passengers daily.
The second was Frank Pick, who in 1906 began working for Yerkes’ Underground Electric Railway Limited (UERL), which by now owned all the underground lines other than the Metropolitan and the Waterloo & City.
He was the first person to brand the Tube, helping create the idea of a homogeneous transport network. He popularised the now famous logo (he borrowed it from the London General Omnibus Company) and commissioned the Tube’s font and iconic map of the different lines.
By 1934, the Underground was carrying 410 million passengers a year and had done much to boost the economic output of the city by opening up new areas for commerce and living, and improving the mobility of the workforce.
Since the addition of the Victoria and Jubilee lines (opened in 1968 and 2000 respectively), it currently carries 1.2 billion people a year (and rising), putting the network under strain. Problems include limited track capacity to run extra trains, a signaling system that needs modernising, and inefficient trains that add unwanted heat underground.Yet the Tube is vital for the capital to function as an economic powerhouse. A recent poll of 500 mayors and city experts, commissioned by Siemens, found that traffic infrastructure is by far the most important factor for cities to stay attractive to work in and competitive.
The biggest challenges the Underground faces are capacity increase, improved reliability in the system, and delivering a more customer-focused approach. It is not just about modernising stations, track and introducing new trains to the Underground; it is also about how intelligently and efficiently the system is run.
IT plays an important role here. The Oyster, a pre-paid swipe card, was introduced in London in phases from 2002, and is now used for more than 10 million journeys each day on the city’s public transport network on buses and the Tube, speeding up flows through station barriers by 60 per cent.
Siemens recently provided King’s Cross Station with a monitoring and controlling system for communications and security, which allows faster response to incidents and fault fixing, as well as a single overview of station activities. And since 2010, the Victoria line has had an integrated information system that delivers key performance data for a control centre comprising 16 underground stations and tunnel sections.

 Tube facts• Number of miles/km travelled by each Tube train each year: 114,500 miles/184,269 km• Total length of track 249 miles (402 km)• Total number of passengers: 1.2 billion a year• Total number of staff: about 19,000• Average train speed: 33 km per hour/20.5mph• Proportion of the network that is in tunnels: 45 per cent• Total number of escalators: 426• Station with most escalators: Waterloo with 23• Busiest stations: During the 3-hour morning peak, London’s busiest Tube station is Waterloo, with 57,000 people entering• The busiest station in terms of passengers each year is also Waterloo with 82 million

 Celebrating 150 years of the Tube: commemorative events• The recreation of the first steam train Tube journey on the London Underground on Sunday, January 13th 2013• A series of heritage rail trips for the public to experience a steam train journey• Two new £2 coins issued by the Royal Mint to go into circulation in 2013• A campaign to bring together 150 people whose personal stories will help demonstrate the vibrant history of the Tube• The publication of 12 short stories by well-known authors on each Tube line, published by Penguin Books• Art on the Underground commissions with famous contemporary artists • A London Underground 150 poster art exhibition at London Transport Museum, with a competition sponsored by SiemensSource: TfLTransport for London (TfL), formerly London Transport, has completed and is carrying out a number of upgrades to stations and plans to add air conditioning and new, more efficient trains to some lines.
Whether they love it or put up with it, the Tube has played an integral part in Londoners’ lives throughout its 150 years. As many as 300,000 people took shelter underground during the First World War’s air raids in February 1918, and just more than half that during the Blitz in Second World War.
There has been tragedy too. The King’s Cross St Pancras fire in 1987 killed 312 people while the terrorist attack on July 7th 2005 (7/7) murdered 52 people on trains and above ground, on a bus.
Both the good and the bad have helped weave the Underground into the national consciousness, and it reminds Brits of a time when their country was at the forefront of engineering and social innovation. The global power balance has now shifted east, of course, but the Tube endures, a vital transport artery right in the heart of London

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