Going underground

Ever since the Victorians decided to run trains underneath London, many major world cities have folllowed suit and now rely on metros to keep their population moving.

In the 1860s, when the British Empire was at its largest and wealthiest, London was quite literally the capital of the world. The city was growing rapidly and as its population grew as well, transport within the city began a big issue. Roads that had been originally designed for smaller, slower vehicles now became choked up with horses, carriages and pedestrians. A solution was needed, and people looked to the innovations of the Industrial Revolution for answers. Soon, people hit on a radical new idea, namely that it could be possible to transport people by trains underground. The invention of the steam engine was relatively new and excting, and the idea of combining this with inner-city travels was seen as somewhat preposterous but nonetheless worth a try. So it was that in 1863, using techniques borrowed from digging tunnels for other uses ( such as pedestrian tunnels, waterways and sewers) a 2-mile line from Paddington in west London to Farringdon in East London was excavated. The Metropolitan Railway opened and, despite the smoke-filled, cramped conditions, was immediately adopted by Londoners as a fashionable way to travel. As traffic above ground worsened, the Metropolitan Railway grew, eventuall coming to be called The Underground, or more affectionately, The Tube, a reference to the narrow tube-like tunnels that characterise the older parts of the network.

(taken from Mary Glasgow Magazines, reported by Alistairs Simmons)

Fifteen years ago, Paul Middlewick found himself staring at a London Underground map when he discovered the shape of an elephant hidden within the Circle and the Central Lines. So he thought to create a website with all his discoveries about animals on the underground.

If you cannot believe, visit http://www.animalsontheunderground.com/