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The Tube from YESTERDAY to TODAY People Are Obsessed with the London Underground – This Is a Fact

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The Tube from YESTERDAY to TODAY People Are Obsessed with the London Underground – This Is a Fact The tube FROM YESTERDAY TO TODAY People are obsessed with the London Underground – this is a fact. Since 1863, the network tunnels and trains that run underneath this historic city has fascinated many, and for quite Whistlestop history a good reason. There are so many things to learn about the underground that the learning never stops. When I was studying for my tour guide badge qualification in Westminster, our It was Charles Pearson in 1845 who had wler was interior building exam was on the London Transport Museum. I must admit, I was a little the initial idea, and Sir John Fo the man to design the engineering solu- dismayed. Surely, something like the National Portrait Gallery would have been ‘more tions. Sir John Wolfe-Barry designed most interesting’? Boy, was I wrong. Instead, I became fascinated, catching the bug for wanting of the District Line, and Marc Brunel de- to learn even more about the Underground. Years later, I got the opportunity to volunteer signed the ames Tunnel, which is now as a guide for their Hidden London programme and the learning continues for me today. part of the Overground. When it was first being built, the London Underground that Proclaiming myself just as obsessed with the Underground as others, here are some of the we know today was a series of separate tun- reasons why it is such a remarkable and interesting subject. nels operated by separate companies. Later an American financier Charles Illustration shows the trench and partially completed cut and cover tunnel close to Kings Cross station, Tyson Yerkes (pronounced to rhyme with Illustrated London News London. The railway eventually opened in 1863. turkeys) came to London in 1900. He had left Chicago following a previous scandal and some questionable methods in raising funds for his projects, he got involved in the transportation developments in London once he saw it. First he established the Underground Electric Railways Company and purchased the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway – now part of the Northern Line. He then acquired the District Railway (now District Line) and the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway (now the Piccadilly Line), and partially built the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway (now the Bakerloo Line). All of this raised the eyebrows of banker J.P Morgan but somehow Yerkes kept the mogul at bay. Some financial hic- 20 FOCUS The Magazine July/August 2019 www.focus-info.org z t i l k B c e o t h s t g g n n i i l l r o u r d d d n n u u o o r r g g r r e e d d n n u U w e e h N T cups came along the way but after World electrical circuit board, this was a straight - Underground’, as well as drawing up the War I, the lines were expanded and thus forward map that was approved. Since his first diagrammatic tube map in 1922, de - the foundations of our current system were design, we haven’t had many alterations to picting the network as coloured lines con - in place. the famous London Underground map. nected with the characteristic interchange Today, it is so iconic that shower curtains, symbols. No accident that his brother was Heroes of the stations jewelry, t-shirts and other items are created Eric Gill and trained Edward Johnstone. to celebrate the fabulous and colourful Next time you travel on the Underground design. Is it really underground? and exit the stations, take a closer look at If you have ever traveled to Piccadilly the design of the buildings and platforms. Circus, you might have noticed a massive e Underground was created using sev - One man designed more than 50 stations, roundel (that’s the official name of the eral methods, a shallow process called ‘cut architect Leslie Green was commissioned in round tube sign) in the station with the and cover’ whereby they dug up the 1904 with the mammoth task of creating name Frank Pick illuminated. Pick was in ground and then covered the tunnels with some kind of formality to each location. charge of the London Passenger Transport the leftover dirt. Deeper tunneling was When you next travel to and from a station, Board and it was under his care that the used with a tunneling shield developed by if it has ox blood-coloured tiles on the out - look and feel, or corporate identity, was James Henry Greathead, the process was side with semi-circular archways for en - created. In addition to approving Beck’s deemed a safer method for workers. trances and green and white tiles inside the map, he also introduced the term Tunnels only make up only 45% of the entrance hall, you’ll know you are in a “Underground” as a brand, complete with Underground, with the deepest station Green-designed station. Remember, this is roundels as signs. He hired Edward being Hampstead at 58.5 meters below just before the First World War when liter - Johnston, who created the iconic font that surface. acy wasn’t common and the trains were was used on all signs – a sans serif lettering If you like your underground with a bit traveling at quite a fast pace, so Green de - that was easy to read for passengers on the of alcohol, there is a subterranean bar cided to make the interiors of the platform walls unique to each station. Each of his go. Also commissioned by Frank Pick was called Cahoots in Soho. e decor is post- stations had different tile combinations, so Macdonald Gill who began the artistic tra - war 1940s and the drinks are delicious. It’s that if a passenger had missed the sign of dition of the Underground posters, which the perfect way to celebrate London’s fa - the station on the wall, they could identify continues to this day with ‘Art on the mous transport system with a drink in the stop by the colour of the tiles. Green’s stations also have distinct features, includ - ing acanthus flowers or pomegranate tile e r t decor and flat roofs so that the n e C Underground could later sell the air rights s t r , to prospective builders to recoup finances. A 2 g 2 n 9 Please do stop and look at these stations as i r 1 , e t p t they are his legacy. a e L m e London Underground map is one of e m h e T t : the easiest public transportation maps to s h y p S a read in the world. Interestingly, it wasn’t the r d g n o u first map they came up with. After many t o o r h g r versions of trying to make a map that incor - P . e n d g n porated well-known public buildings above i s U e d n ground, actual distances between stops and o s ’ d k c other 3-D attempts, it was a simple solution n e o B L s y that won the day. In 1931 Harry Beck sub - ’ l r l i r a mitted a map and as an electrician and G H d l g a technical drawer himself, he knew that pas - n n i t o a d sengers didn’t really care about accuracy but D - c e a easy to read stops. Basing his design on an r p M www.focus-info.org FOCUS The Magazine 21 guide for this programme, I am privileged to guide at both Down Street and r Aldwych. Down Street was closed in 1932 a b d and there is evidence that Winston n u o Churchill used it as a secret bunker. g r e Aldwych was used for housing precious art d n U from the National Gallery and British e h t Museum during the Blitz; and most re - – cently for sets in different movies and even o h o the Firestarter video by e Prodigy. S , r a You don’t have to go underground to ex - B s t perience the “tube”. In fact, there are many o o h fans of walking the tube lines above a C ground. ere are websites that are dedi - your hand. Many will recall in June 2008 hours, 20 minutes and 27 seconds. If you cated to the paths that are taken above when then mayor of London Boris fancy the challenge, there’s a map online ground to mimic the routes of the London Johnson banned drinking alcohol in the you can use to get you started. Underground. In 2014, I was one of many guides leading charity walkers around the London Underground, the goal was to cre - In 1942 a book was published with the path of the Circle Line. It took a full eight ate a safer and more comfortable travel ex - lists of trains, also known as rolling stock, hours and incorporated all four corners of perience for all. On the last night before and their carriage numbers. is provoked the city. the ban, Londoners far and wide got on a hobby for young men around the coun - In January, when the weather is cold and the tube with a bottle in hand for a final try to stand at the end of a platform to the sparkle of the holidays has faded, “last call”. Ironically, some people were watch trains go by, once the train was spot - Londoners get bored and need something surprised by the ban, exclaiming, “I never ted they would mark them off in their entertaining to do.
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