As the timeline will show you, the Tube’s role in the development of London’s recent history and urban planning is unmistakable. Hopefully, the timeline will also have you marvel at the sheer engineering feat of creating the Tube network.
The Thames Tunnel, the world’s first tunnel under a river, was opened in 1843.
The construction of the first underground railway began in 1860. Even though London was served by several overground railway mainlines, the infrastructure in the city was horrendous; it was said that it took as long to cross central London by cab as it took to travel from Brighton to London by train.
In August 1870, the Tower Subway opened. It was a narrow, circular tunnel dug beneath the banks of the Thames from Tower Hill to Vine Lane.
Already in the 1860s, there had been talk about an underground inner circuit, connecting the Metropolitan and District railways to form a circular line serving the stations of Inner London.
In the 1890s, the first electric trains began operating the Underground on a new line called City & South London Railway (today part of the Northern line).
The Central London Railway (now part of the Central line) opened in 1900, and it soon became known as the “Twopenny Tube” due to its fare of 2d (equivalent of 2 pennies in the old English monetary standard).
World War I (1914-1918) had restrained extension plans for both The Metropolitan and the UERL, but after World War I, the British government was eager to reduce unemployment and boost the economy.
In the first part of the 20th century, there were so many Tube railways that it became difficult to draw them on a regular map.
The years 1940-1945 were marked by World War II, and the bombs that fell over London during the Blitz (common name for the German air raids in 1940 and 1941, which left large parts of London in ruins).
The 1950s had been a period of stagnation for the Tube, and only one extension of the Central Line took place in 1957.
