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History Of The London UndergroundAs the oldest and one of the most complicated rapid transit systems in the world, the London Underground has a long history. The first half of the 19th century saw rapid development in train services to London, but most mainline termini were constructed a long way away from the central business district to avoid damage to historic buildings. As a result, reliance on buses increased until London was gridlocked. The solution came in the form of yet another railway. In 1854 it was decided that the Metropolitan Railway Company would be allowed to build a short stretch of underground railway between Paddington and Farringdon. This would link the mainline termini of King's Cross, St. Pancras, Euston and Paddington to a point near the edge of the City of London. The relatively simple cut-and-cover method was used, because deep-level tunnel construction methods were not sufficiently advanced to construct anything more than covered trenches. This first part of the Metropolitan Railway was opened in 1863 using steam locomotives to haul trains, which meant that ventilation shafts had to be built at regular intervals. Expansion was rapid. The Metropolitan quickly branched out into the suburbs, even creating whole villages from nothing in a region of countryside which came to be known as "Metroland". The railway bought up extra land adjacent to the railway and built houses in a spectacularly practical example of demand creation and by 1880 the 'Met' was carrying 40 million passengers a year. Meanwhile, a second railway company began construction further south. The Metropolitan District Railway first opened a stretch from Westminster to South Kensington in 1868, taking advantage of the construction of the Thames embankment to expand towards the city, reaching Tower Hill and linking the termini of Victoria, Charing Cross, Blackfriars, Cannon Street and Fenchurch Street. Having conquered the city, the District Railway turned its attention to commuters even more so than the Metropolitan Railway had, reaching Wimbledon, Richmond and Ealing. Although the Circle Line didn't get its own identity until 1949, the "District" and the "Metropolitan" had linked up with each other to provide an "Inner Circle" service starting in 1884. Advances in deep-level tunnel design came thick and fast. Tunnelling shields 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, better shields and electric locomotive traction appealed to engineers for more ambitious schemes. The result was the City & South London Railway, which linked King William Street (close to today's Monument Station) and Stockwell. The ride was unpleasantly rough and the lack of windows seemed to have a detrimental psychological effect. However, people learned from these mistakes and over the next 25 years six independent deep-level lines were built. The presence of six independent operators running different Tube lines was inconvenient. In many places passengers had to walk some distance above ground to change between lines. Also, the costs associated with running such a system were heavy, and as a result many companies looked to financiers who could give them the money they needed to expand into the lucrative suburbs. One such financier was Charles Yerkes, an American tycoon whose companies (first the Metropolitan District Traction Company, then Underground Electric Railways of London) initially took over the District, Piccadilly and Bakerloo lines. The Underground Group, as this second company was known, gradually absorbed the rest of the tube lines, save the Waterloo & City (which remained separate until 1994) and Metropolitan lines. The company also owned many tram lines and proceeded to buy the London General Omnibus Company, creating an organisation colloquially known as the Combine. In 1933, a public corporation called the London Passenger Transport Board was created. The Underground Group, the Metropolitan line and all the independent bus and tram lines were placed under the Board, an organisation which approximated the scope of the current Transport for London. Between the wars, expansion took place at a rapid pace, driving the Northern and Bakerloo Lines out into the suburbs of northern London. Architect Charles Holden's memorable station designs have brightened the commuters' journey both on these lines and elsewhere with a style which still looks fresh today. World War II The outbreak of World War II, and especially The Blitz, led to the use of many Tube stations as air-raid shelters. They were particularly suited to this purpose, but sadly a small number of horrific accidents occurred, notably at Bethnal Green. Other stations and sections of line were given other uses: Post-war developments Following the war, travel congestion continued to rise. The construction of the carefully planned Victoria Line on a diagonal northeast-southwest alignment beneath central London attracted much of the extra traffic caused by expansion after the war. It was designed so that almost all of the stations along its length allowed interchange with other lines, and it was the first underground line to use automatic train operation (ATO). Remarkably, steam locomotives continued to be used on the Underground (as engineering trains) until as late as 1971, several years after steam had been phased out on the national railway network. In 1977, the Piccadilly Line was extended to Heathrow Airport. The Jubilee Line was named in honour of Queen Elizabeth's Silver Jubilee in 1977, but did not open until two years later. During design and into initial construction it had been known as the Fleet Line as the route was planned to follow much of London's hidden River Fleet along The Strand and Fleet Street to Bank. During the 1990s it was diverted from the original route through Charing Cross to a new tunnel via Westminster and extending through the Docklands to Stratford in East London. The stations on the Jubilee Line Extension are particularly spacious and stylish, each designed by a leading architect. London Underground states that North Greenwich station, for example, "is large enough to contain 3,000 double-decker buses or an ocean liner the size of the RMS Queen Mary within its walls." Canary Wharf station is larger in volume than 1 Canada Square, one of the huge towers that dominates the Docklands area; it was built on a barge that was then sunk into the Thames to move it to its final position. Canary Wharf is also notable for being the first London Underground station to play host to a wedding; this event took place in 2003. All platforms between North Greenwich and Westminster incorporate automated platform-edge doors which are designed to minimise the wind resistance of the train and for noise abatement purposes; as a side benefit they also assist in the prevention of suicides. They are a predominant feature of the Jubilee Line Extension, and there are no plans at present to extend their installation to the rest of the Line or overall system. These modern stations include lifts (elevators) to ease access to all parts of the station complex and were the first stations on the London system to be fully wheelchair accessible. Flooding is an increasing problem for the system. The ground water of London has been rising since the 1960s, after the closing of industries such as breweries and paper mills that had previously extracted large volumes of water. By mid 2001, London Underground was pumping 30,000 cubic metres of water out of its tunnels each day. Until the completion of the Thames flood barrier in 1986, there was also a strong danger of flooding from the Thames itself. A series of floodgates were erected in the tunnels such that they would seal the affected sections of tunnel closed, allowing services to continue to run elsewhere on the line. The floodgates were no longer necessary once the Thames flood barrier came into service, but they remain in place and are tested three times a year.
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