Metropolitan Railway (1863): London Opens the First Underground

The Metropolitan Railway opened on 10 January 1863 between Paddington and Farringdon Street in London, becoming the world’s first underground passenger railway. Built mostly by digging trenches beneath existing roads and roofing them over, and worked by steam locomotives, it carried millions of passengers in its first year. It was the first section of what became the London Underground and the model for metro systems around the world.

Background: a city choked by traffic

By the mid-nineteenth century London was the largest city in the world, with well over two million people. Mainline railways had reached the capital, but Parliament had kept their terminals, such as Paddington, Euston and King’s Cross, outside the central area. Passengers then had to cross the city by horse-drawn omnibus, cab or on foot, adding to the congestion of streets already crowded with carts and carriages.

A Royal Commission in 1846 had confirmed the policy of keeping new railway termini out of central London, so any link would have to be built in a way that disturbed as little property as possible. Many people commuted on foot over long distances, and the poor crowded into overcrowded housing close to their places of work.

Charles Pearson, solicitor to the City of London, argued from the 1840s for a railway to bring workers into the City and to link the terminals. After years of failed proposals, Parliament authorised a line in 1853 as the North Metropolitan Railway, renamed the Metropolitan Railway in 1854. Raising money was slow, partly because of the Crimean War, and the City of London Corporation invested in the scheme at Pearson’s urging.

Building by cut-and-cover

The chief engineer was John Fowler. Work began in 1860. Most of the line followed the New Road, today’s Marylebone Road and Euston Road, so that the company could dig beneath the roadway instead of buying and demolishing many buildings.

The method, called cut-and-cover, involved digging a trench roughly 9 metres wide, building brick side walls and an arched roof, and then restoring the road on top. It required moving gas and water pipes and sewers, and caused months of disruption. Near Farringdon, where the line ran through the valley of the old River Fleet, houses were demolished, mostly the homes of poor families, who received little help in finding new accommodation. In June 1862 the Fleet sewer, a buried river, burst into the works near Farringdon and flooded the trench, delaying completion.

A trial trip carrying directors and guests, including the Chancellor of the Exchequer, William Ewart Gladstone, ran in May 1862.

Opening day

The official opening took place on 9 January 1863 with a special train and a banquet at Farringdon Street. The public service began the next day, Saturday 10 January. The line was about 3.75 miles (6 km) long, with seven stations: Paddington (Bishop’s Road), Edgware Road, Baker Street, Portland Road, Gower Street, King’s Cross and Farringdon Street.

Demand was overwhelming. Around 38,000 passengers are reported to have travelled on the first day, and trains ran every few minutes at busy times. Fares were offered in three classes, and cheap early-morning workmen’s tickets were introduced soon after. In its first year the line carried around 9.5 million passengers.

Steam beneath the streets

The track was laid with mixed gauge so that both standard-gauge trains and the Great Western Railway’s broad-gauge trains could run. At first the Great Western provided the trains and carriages, which were lit by gas. After a dispute in August 1863 it withdrew them at short notice, and the Metropolitan borrowed rolling stock from the Great Northern Railway until its own locomotives arrived in 1864.

The locomotives were designed to condense their exhaust steam into water tanks while in the tunnels, but smoke and fumes still filled the stations and tunnels. Openings to the sky were left at intervals to let the smoke out. An experimental smokeless engine that stored heat in hot bricks, nicknamed “Fowler’s Ghost”, proved a failure.

Public reaction

Before the opening many Londoners doubted that anyone would choose to travel through dark, smoky tunnels. Critics warned of suffocation, collapsing roofs and danger to buildings above, and some newspapers mocked the idea of a “sewer railway”. The success of the first weeks silenced most of these doubts, and the press soon praised the speed and convenience of the new line.

Complaints about the atmosphere never fully disappeared. Passengers and staff endured sulphurous fumes for decades, and ventilation was a recurring subject of official inquiries until electrification. Even so, the time saved compared with crossing London by road made the Metropolitan popular with clerks, shoppers and, through workmen’s fares, manual labourers.

Key people

• Charles Pearson: City solicitor and long-time campaigner for the line; he died in September 1862, before it opened.
• John Fowler: chief engineer, later co-designer of the Forth Bridge.
• William Ewart Gladstone: Chancellor of the Exchequer who joined a trial trip in 1862.

Consequences

The Metropolitan was a commercial success and quickly expanded. A branch to Hammersmith opened in 1864 and the line reached Moorgate in 1865. Together with the rival Metropolitan District Railway, it completed the Inner Circle, the forerunner of today’s Circle line, in 1884. Later the company built far out into the countryside north-west of London, promoting suburbs it called “Metro-land”.

The underground arrived as London was also rebuilding beneath its streets for other reasons, notably Joseph Bazalgette’s sewer system begun after the Great Stink of 1858. In 1890 the City and South London Railway opened the first deep-level electric “tube”, bored far below the surface, and electric trains replaced steam on the Metropolitan’s inner sections in 1905.

The original line still forms part of the Hammersmith and City, Circle and Metropolitan lines, and several of its stations survive. The Circle line platforms at Baker Street were restored in 1983 to resemble their original appearance. In January 2013, to mark the 150th anniversary, a restored Metropolitan steam locomotive pulled heritage carriages through the original tunnels.

Other cities followed London’s lead, including Budapest in 1896, Paris in 1900, Berlin in 1902 and New York in 1904.

By the numbers

These figures come from company records and contemporary reports, and the first-day total in particular should be treated as an approximate figure. They nonetheless show how quickly Londoners adopted the new railway, and why investors soon backed further underground lines across the capital.

Timeline

• 1853: Parliament authorises the North Metropolitan Railway.
• 1854: The company is renamed the Metropolitan Railway.
• 1860: Construction begins under John Fowler.
• 1862, May: A trial trip carries Gladstone and other guests.
• 1862, June: The Fleet sewer floods the works near Farringdon.
• 1862, September: Charles Pearson dies.
• 1863, 10 January: The line opens to the public between Paddington and Farringdon Street.
• 1884: The Inner Circle is completed.
• 1905: Electric trains replace steam on the inner sections.

Why it matters

The Metropolitan Railway proved that railways could run beneath a crowded city and attract huge numbers of passengers. It began the London Underground, shaped the growth of London’s suburbs and provided the model for metro systems that now carry billions of people a year worldwide, a story that began with steam pioneers such as the Stockton and Darlington Railway.