Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

THE TUBE RAILWAYS OF LONDON. 229 Station 'tunnel SECTIONS OF STATION AND RUNNING TUNNELS ON CITY AND SOUTH LONDON RAILWAY. A bolder employment of Greathead’s method led to the construction, during the years 1884- 1890 of the City and Southwark Subway from The City and South London Railway. King William Street, City, to the “ Elephant and Castle ” on the south side of the river, now known as the City and South London Railway. With the extensions made from time to time, it now has a total length of over seven miles, and reaches from Euston in the north to Clapham in the south. It was originally intended that this line should be worked by an endless cable, but the rapid progress in electric traction caused the latter form of power to be substituted, with excellent results. Approximate length in The Central London Railway (Shepherd’s Bush to the Bank of England)............ 6| Waterloo and City Railway.... 1| Great Northern and City Rail- way (from Finsbury Park to Moorgate Street)......... 3 City and South London exten- sion to Islington............ 3 Charing Cross and Hampstead. 5 Baker Street and Waterloo (The “ Bakerloo ”)................ 3 The sketch maps on p. 228 show the progress, at different dates, of the construction of these various lines. At the present time there are open for public traffic over forty miles of double-line Tube railways. Diameter of Train Tunnels. The gauge of the permanent ways of the Tubes is standard—that is, 4 feet 81 inches. The size of the tunnels varies, however, so that the rolling stock of the dif- ferent companies is not inter- changeable. Thus, the first section of the City and South London Railway had tunnels 10 feet 2 inches in diamete’r, whereas on the last extension of this system the diameter has been increased to 11 feet 6 inches. In the case of the Great Northern and City Railway, which was designed to assist and relieve the local passenger traffic of the Great On the opening of the first section of this railway, it was realized that Mr. Greathead’s methods could be applied at a compara- London lively small cost to the “Tubes.” construction of deep- level lines through the thick stratum of clay which underlies the greater part of London. The year 1892 witnessed the birth of a number of separate and independent schemes for “ Tubes,” and in 1893 the follow- ing were authorized :— Station Tunnel SECTIONS OF STATION AND RUNNING TUNNELS ON WATERLOO AND CITY RAILWAY.