Rapid transit began with the opening in 1863 of the Metropolitan Railway, now part of the London Underground. However, the smoke caused discomfort for passengers in operating steam trains through tunnels and limited the appeal of this mode of transport. Between 1863 to 1890 there were numerous proposals to build pneumatic or cable-hauled railways in London to overcome this problem, but none proved successful. Smoke was less of a problem in steam-hauled elevated railways, starting with the West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway in New York City in 1870 (although this line opened unsuccessfully as a cable-hauled railway in 1868). The opening of London's City & South London Railway in 1890 overcame the smoke problem by using electric traction and led to the development of electric underground railways in Liverpool, Budapest, Glasgow, Boston, Paris, Berlin and New York City by 1904.
Famous quotes containing the words history of, history, rapid and/or transit:
“The history of this country was made largely by people who wanted to be left alone. Those who could not thrive when left to themselves never felt at ease in America.”
—Eric Hoffer (1902–1983)
“Literary works cannot be taken over like factories, or literary forms of expression like industrial methods. Realist writing, of which history offers many widely varying examples, is likewise conditioned by the question of how, when and for what class it is made use of.”
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)
“Missionaries, whether of philosophy or religion, rarely make rapid way, unless their preachings fall in with the prepossessions of the multitude of shallow thinkers, or can be made to serve as a stalking-horse for the promotion of the practical aims of the still larger multitude, who do not profess to think much, but are quite certain they want a great deal.”
—Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–95)
“My esoteric doctrine, is that if you entertain any doubt, it is safest to take the unpopular side in the first instance. Transit from the unpopular, is easy ... but from the popular to the unpopular is so steep and rugged that it is impossible to maintain it.”
—William Lamb Melbourne, 2nd Viscount (1779–1848)