In 1855 an
Act of Parliament was passed approving the construction of an underground railway between
Paddington Station and
Farringdon Street via
King's Cross which was to be called the
Metropolitan Railway. The
Great Western Railway (GWR) gave financial backing to the project when it was agreed that a junction would be built linking the underground railway with its mainline terminus at
Paddington. GWR also agreed to design special trains for the new subterranean railway.
A shortage of funds delayed construction for several years. The fact that this project got under way at all was largely due to the lobbying of
Charles Pearson, who was Solicitor to the
City of London Corporation at the time. Pearson had supported the idea of an underground railway in London for several years. He advocated plans for the demolition of the unhygienic slums which would be replaced by new accommodation for their inhabitants in the suburbs, with the new railway providing transportation to their places of work in the city centre. Although he was never directly involved in the running of the Metropolitan Railway, he is widely credited with being one of the earliest visionaries behind the concept of underground railways. And in 1859 it was Pearson who persuaded the City of London Corporation to help fund the scheme. Work finally began in February 1860, under the guidance of chief engineer
John Fowler. Pearson died before the work was completed.
The Metropolitan Railway opened on 10 January 1863,
[6] and was carrying over 26,000 passengers a day within a few months of opening.
[11] The
Hammersmith and City Railway was opened on 13 June 1864 between
Hammersmith and Paddington. Services were initially operated by GWR between Hammersmith and Farringdon Street. By April 1865 the Metropolitan had taken over the service. On 23 December 1865 the Metropolitan's eastern extension to
Moorgate Street opened. Later in the decade other branches were opened to
Swiss Cottage,
South Kensington and Addison Road, Kensington (now known as
Kensington Olympia). The railway was initially
dual gauge, allowing for the use of the GWR's
broad-gauge rolling stock as well as the more widely used
standard-gauge stock. Disagreements with GWR forced the Metropolitan to switch to standard gauge in 1863 after the GWR withdrew all its stock from the railway. These differences were later patched up. Broad-gauge trains ceased to run on the Metropolitan in March 1869.
On 24 December 1868, the
Metropolitan District Railway began operating between South Kensington and
Westminster using Metropolitan Railway trains and carriages. The company, which soon became known as "the District", was first incorporated in 1864 to complete an
Inner Circle railway around London in conjunction with the Metropolitan. This was part of a plan to build both an Inner Circle line and
Outer Circle line.
A fierce rivalry soon developed between the District and the Metropolitan. This severely delayed the completion of the Inner Circle project as the two companies competed to build far more financially lucrative railways in the suburbs of London. The
London and North Western Railway (LNWR) began running its Outer Circle service from
Broad Street via
Willesden Junction, Addison Road and
Earl's Court to
Mansion House in 1872. The Inner Circle was not completed until 1884, with the Metropolitan and the District jointly running services. In the meantime, the District had finished its route between
West Brompton and
Blackfriars in 1870, with an interchange with the Metropolitan at South Kensington. In 1877, it began running its own services from
Hammersmith to
Richmond, on a line originally opened by the
London & South Western Railway (LSWR) in 1869. The District then opened a new line from
Turnham Green to
Ealing in 1879
[12] and extended its West Brompton branch to
Fulham in 1880. Over the same decade the Metropolitan was extended to
Harrow-on-the-Hill station in the north-west.
The early tunnels were dug mainly using
cut-and-cover construction methods. This caused widespread disruption, and required the demolition of many properties on the surface. The first trains were steam-hauled, requiring effective ventilation to the surface. Ventilation shafts at various points on the route allowed the engines to expel steam and bring fresh air into the tunnels. One such vent is at
Leinster Gardens, W2.
[13] To preserve the visual characteristics in what is still a well-to-do street, a five-foot-thick (1.5 m) concrete façade was constructed to resemble a genuine house frontage.
On 7 December 1869 the
London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR) started operating between
Wapping and
New Cross Gate on the
East London Railway (ELR) using the
Thames Tunnel built by
Marc Brunel and his son
Isambard Kingdom Brunel, using the revolutionary
tunnelling shield method which made its construction possible. This had opened in 1843 as a pedestrian tunnel, but in 1865 it was bought by the ELR (a consortium of six railway companies: the
Great Eastern Railway (GER); London, Brighton and South Coast Railway (LB&SCR);
London, Chatham and Dover Railway (LCDR);
South Eastern Railway (SER); Metropolitan Railway; and the Metropolitan District Railway) and converted into a railway tunnel. In 1884 the District and the Metropolitan began to operate services on the line.
By the end of the 1880s, underground railways reached
Chesham on the Metropolitan,
Hounslow,
Wimbledon and
Whitechapel on the District and
New Cross on the East London Railway. By the end of the 19th century, the Metropolitan had extended its lines far outside London to
Aylesbury,
Verney Junction and
Brill, creating new suburbs along the route, later publicised by the company as
Metro-land. Right up until the 1930s the company maintained ambitions to be considered as a main line rather than an urban railway, ambitions that are still continued somewhat today.
