Tube, Train, Tram, and Car; or, Up-to-date locomotionBeavan, Arthur H. (Arthur Henry)
History
Tube, Train, Tram, and Car; or, Up-to-date locomotion
Beavan, Arthur H. (Arthur Henry)
Electric automobiles; Electric railroads; Street-railroads -- England -- London
That the City and South London Railway is most useful and popular is
shown by the number of passengers it has carried--some ninety millions
since its opening--the returns for last year showing about eighteen
millions, over a total route of about seven miles. For the convenience
of travellers, it eventually will have subways, connecting its Lombard
Street Station with the Bank Station of the Central London Railway, and
it already has them from its new London Bridge Station to the London,
Brighton, and South Coast Railway. Finally, it can boast of possessing a
station below a church--a unique position, I believe. St. Mary
Woolnoth’s foundations were completely removed, the vaults cleared out,
and the whole replaced by huge iron girders, whereon the sacred edifice
now rests, with the booking-office below.
THE WATERLOO AND CITY RAILWAY
The month of August, 1898, was unusually warm, and the heat was felt as
much in the City as anywhere. Straw hats were universal; the shady side
of the street, if there happened to be one, was thronged; secluded
alleys and courts were resorted to by the knowing ones who could afford
the time to linger there; and even highly respectable merchants were to
be found sitting in shirt-sleeves at their writing-tables and wishing,
with Sydney Smith, that they could “sit in their bones.”
At the junction of the Poultry with Victoria Street, shadowed by the
Mansion House, from each side of the road a mysterious hoarding had just
been removed, revealing an iron railing enclosing a small area with a
mysterious staircase bearing the announcement that it led to the subway
to the new electric railway, connecting the City with Waterloo Station.
Descending a few steps, and emerging into a tunnelled incline, the
perspiring pedestrian quickly found that here, if anywhere, was a refuge
from the heat, the coolest place in London, and that it was well worth
while, on the pretence of urgent business across the water, to pay
twopence each way, merely to drink in the refreshing air wafted
backwards and forwards along subway, platform, and tube.
This was the Waterloo and City Railway, a short deep-level line on the
tube principle, nearly 1¾ miles long, burrowing under the Thames’ bed.
At the terminus, by rather prolonged inclines and staircases, passengers
could walk to the main or suburban platforms of Waterloo Station and
catch the trains for Wimbledon, Hampton Court, Surbiton, etc.
Like the City and South London, this railway meets a great want. Before
its opening, City men living down the London and South Western line had
no alternative but to catch a South Eastern train from Cannon Street or
Charing Cross; to take an omnibus _viâ_ the Strand across to Waterloo
Bridge; or to cab it by devious routes _viâ_ Blackfriars Bridge. Now
they can reach Waterloo with ease, comfort, and economy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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