Back to the Victorians calendar
Train travel was now really popular and it was changing the way people lived in so many different ways. The railways allowed ordinary, working-class people to see more of their own country. Reading habits were changing too as a man called W H Smith had opened a bookstall at Euston Station in 1848, selling cheaper versions of the classic novels of the time. By 1863, Mr Smith had over 500 such bookstalls all over the country. A baptist minister, Thomas Cook, set up a travel agent selling cheap rail tickets. At the time the railway network was very class conscious. There were first class carriages where the wealthy, who paid more, would sit, while the poorer people would sit in the third class carriages. This was still happening in the nineteen sixties when I used to go to school by underground train. Both Mr W H Smith and Mr Thomas Cook are still around today, well their names are.
It is, however, true that many people lost money on the growth of railway building. It was a little like the South Sea bubble from 1720 (go and read it if you haven't, its here). Everyone wanted shares, the wealthy wanted to own and build railways, and not all were profitable. By 1850, 50,000 men were working on the railways. Many lines were built by businessmen who wanted to move their goods around quicker. By 1872, Britain had the highest density of railway lines in the world and we started to help construct lines in foreign countries. The railways also solved the problem of having to bury so many people in London as, from 1854, there was a funeral train, carrying around 70 coffins, from Waterloo to Brookwood cemetery in Surrey. There was no return ticket.
By the way, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had travelled on their first rail journey between Paddington and Windsor on June 13 1842. The Queen, though nervous, said she loved it but Albert is said to have told the conductor, “not so fast next time, please”.
But in London it was still quite difficult to travel between the major stations. Obviously building a train track right through a busy city would be very disruptive, both during the building and afterwards, so someone had the idea to build a railway underground.
The first underground railway in the world opened on 10th January 1863 and ran between Paddington and Farringdon. Passengers travelled in wooden carriages lit by gas lights and pulled by steam locomotives. The locomotives were supposed to only let off steam at certain points where the tunnels had vents but it was still very
cramped and sweaty. I am sure some of these first passengers would have arrived covered in soot. However 38,000 did the journey on the opening day. Luckily, from 1846 all railway carriages had to have covers to protect the passengers. One passenger who didn't make the journey was the then Prime Minister, 79-year old Lord Palmerston, who announced that at his age he felt it better if he stayed above ground a while longer.
In December 1868 another line opened between South Kensington and Westminster. The tunnels for these first lines were known as “cut and cover” tunnels as they were dug just below the surface and then covered. Later circular tunnels were dug far deeper underground which was why the whole system became known as “the tube” Weirdly, despite it being known as the underground, only 45 of the 250 (400 kms) miles of track is underground.
As you can see from our map below, there are now 270 stations (bet you didn't count them) and 11 different lines with a new one opening soon. The tube map was designed by a man called Harry Beck in 1931. It was voted a national design icon in 2006.
Each day about 4.8 million passengers use the tube and in 2016 it carried a total of 1.34 billion passengers, including me a few times, and that makes it the 11th busiest city system in the world. Also, interestingly, only 10% of the stations are south of the River Thames.
By 1890, when the first deeper tube opened, the carriages were pulled by electric engines, presumably meaning you could arrive at your destination without looking like a chimney sweep.
What you may not know, and can take a look next time you go on the tube, is that the tile designs in stations differs. This is not because they wanted to be different but because when the tube began many people couldn't read the station names but they could recognise the different tile designs. Clever that, isn't it?
While we are talking about transport I will also tell you that during Victorian times horse buses first appeared on the streets of London, allowing even more people to move away from their place of work and live in the suburbs.
Forward to 1864AD
