History of The London Underground - Deep-level Tube Lines

Deep-level Tube Lines

Advances in deep-level tunnel design came rapidly. Tunnelling shields and segmented tunnel linings allowed stable tunnels to be constructed deep underground, and the world's first underground tube railway was the Tower Subway beneath the River Thames south of Tower Hill in 1870. While this was soon discontinued as a rail service because of poor patronage, better shields and electric locomotive traction appealed to engineers for more ambitious schemes.

The result was the City and South London Railway (C&SLR), which linked King William Street (close to today's Monument station) and Stockwell in 1890. The trains were small and cramped, the ride was unpleasantly rough and the lack of windows in the carriages seemed to have a detrimental psychological effect on passengers, but the railway was a success. Following its opening, a host of railway schemes were promoted in Parliament during the last decade of the 19th century and obtained consent for construction. Few, however were able to raise the investment to allow work to begin.

By 1900 only two new tube lines had opened:

• Waterloo and City Railway (W&CR), opened in 1898 and operated by mainline company the London and South Western Railway from its terminal at Waterloo to Bank station in the City of London. It was later operated by British Rail until taken over by London Underground in 1994.
• Central London Railway (CLR), opened in 1900 (now the Central Line)

Other companies with permissions to build but without the finance included:

• Great Northern and City Railway (GN&CR), opened in 1904 (operated by the MetR from 1913 and the Northern line from 1939 until 1975 and now operated by Network Rail)
• Great Northern and Strand Railway (GN&SR) and the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway (B&PCR), merged to form the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway and opened in 1906 (now the Piccadilly line)
• Baker Street and Waterloo Railway (BS&WR), opened in 1906 (now the Bakerloo line)
• Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway (CCE&HR), opened in 1907 (now part of the Northern Line)

Charles Yerkes was an American tycoon with experience of operating electric tramways in Chicago. He was also an expert in arranging the complex financial structures necessary to raise the capital the railway companies needed. In 1900, he bought the powers of the CCE&HR company. The following year he secured effective control of the District with a view to its electrification. A few months later he formed the Metropolitan District Electric Traction Company (MDETC) with those two lines and arranged to build Lots Road power station. Having then acquired control of the GN&SR, the B&PCR and BS&WR railways, the MDETC was reconstituted as the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL) on 9 April 1902. In time, the company also owned many tram lines and proceeded to buy the London General Omnibus Company, creating an organisation colloquially known as the Combine.

Yerkes raised the funds necessary to build the BS&WR, GNP&BR and the CCE&HR, mainly in the United States, and much of the technology used on the railways was also American in origin. The independence of the railways initially led to competition and rivalry between operators, an inconvenience for passengers. From 1907, the four UERL lines and the C&SLR and CLR began to promote a common brand (the Underground) and began to integrate their ticketing arrangements so that through tickets for journeys on more than one line could be purchased. In 1913, the C&SLR and CLR were taken over and added to the UERL operation, leaving just the MetR, W&CR and the GN&CR as the remaining independent underground railway businesses in London. A proposal for a merger of the UERL and the MetR was considered in 1913, but it was not enacted. The GN&CR was taken over by the MetR in the same year.