Fergie's Tech Blog

2 August 1870: First Underground Subway Opens in London

The Tower Subway is a tunnel beneath the River Thames in central London, close — as the name suggests — to the Tower of London. Its alignment runs between Tower Hill on the north side of the river and Vine Lane (off Tooley Street) to the south. It was the world's first underground tube railway, though not the first underground railway.

The tunnel is called a subway not due to the American English definition, equivalent to underground rapid transit, but due to the British usage, describing a tunnel in general.

It was designed and built by James Henry Greathead in 1869–1870 using a cylindrical wrought-iron tunnelling shield he designed with Peter W. Barlow. The entrance shaft at Tower Hill is 60′ deep, while that in Vine Lane is 50′ deep. The minimum distance between the top of the tunnel and the river bed is 22′.

It was originally intended to provide a railway service beneath the river. It was the world's first underground tube railway, officially opened on 2 August 1870. A small cable car (dubbed an omnibus by the tunnel's operators) carrying 12 people shuttled passengers from end to end through a single bore, 450 yards long and 7′ in diameter, on 2′ 6″ gauge track. The journey, powered by a 4hp stationary steam engine on the south side of the tunnel, took about 70 seconds.

However, the cramped, low-capacity subway proved uneconomical and lasted just three months. The tunnel was subsequently converted to a pedestrian route with the cables ripped out and gas lights installed. This became a very popular way to cross the river, averaging 20,000 people a week (a million a year) at a cost of a half-penny each way.

In September 1888 the Subway briefly achieved a certain notoriety after a man brandishing a knife was seen in the tunnel at the time when Jack the Ripper was committing murders in nearby Whitechapel.

It was eventually superseded by Tower Bridge, which was constructed a few hundred yards downriver and opened in 1894. The Subway closed shortly afterwards for lack of customers.

posted by Fergie @ 8/02/2006 12:01:00 AM