CHAPTER VI

_THE CENTRAL LONDON ELECTRIC RAILWAY_

“Tell by what paths, what subterranean ways.”--BLACKMORE.

HISTORY OF THE RAILWAY AND ITS CITY SUBWAYS

When those electric traction pioneers, the City and South London, and the Waterloo and City Railways, were opened respectively in 1890 and 1898, they were regarded by the public with a certain amount of apathy. But when, in July, 1900, the Central London Railway, inaugurated by the Prince of Wales, was opened for traffic, and it was realised that the line was laid literally in the centre of London, beneath one of the greatest street routes in existence, viz. Cheapside, Newgate Street, Holborn, Oxford Street, Bayswater and Uxbridge roads, and was capable of dealing with a gigantic stream of passengers at a uniform fare for any distance, it arrested universal attention, and for a time nothing was talked about but the deep-level system for metropolitan railways; and by general approbation the Central was forthwith dubbed “The Twopenny Tube,” a name it will always retain.

Like most great enterprises, the Tube Railway had to contend against considerable opposition before legislative sanction could be obtained for its construction. It was incorporated on August 5th, 1891, after a great battle with Parliament and local authorities, in which affray the late Mr. J. H. Greathead, M. INST. C. E. (deviser of one of the methods of shield-excavating for driving tunnels), took a conspicuous part, and the principle of a “free-way-leave” beneath the streets was successfully confirmed.

The original directors were Mr. Henry Tennant (at one time General Manager of the North Eastern Railway Company), Lord Colville of Culross (Director of the Great Eastern Railway Company), Sir Francis Knollys (Director of the Great Northern Railway Company), the Hon. A. H. Mills (of Glyn, Mills, Currie, and Co.), and the Right Hon. D. R. Plunket (Director of the North London Railway Company). Thus the railway element was strongly represented; the financial to a small but very important extent, and Court influence by two prominent members of the households of the Prince and Princess of Wales.

The Company was authorised to construct a double underground line from Liverpool Street to Shepherds Bush (about 6½ miles); but the plan was modified, and the Bank of England became the City starting-point. In their prospectus the directors modestly predicted an annual passenger traffic of some forty-two millions (or seven millions per mile of line); but this estimate has been largely exceeded, the average being about fifty-two millions per annum, or one million per week.

The Company’s capital ultimately reached the sum of nearly four millions sterling, so the line can hardly be called a cheap one in point of construction; for, although the “way-leave” beneath the streets was free, land had to be bought for the surface booking-offices, costly shafts had to be sunk to the requisite depth, and tunnels driven, and numerous subterranean stations had to be built. Thus, apart from the cost of the rolling-stock and installation of a large current-generating station, the initial expenses soon mounted up.

All the booking-offices and stations are built on one principle, each with its great electric lift; but special interest attaches to the City terminus.

It was necessary to make use, somehow, of the open space between the Mansion House, the Bank, and the Royal Exchange--an ideal spot for a central railway station. But how was it to be effected? For years the Civic Fathers had contemplated the construction of subways for the safety and convenience of foot-passengers at this, which has been termed the busiest--as it is almost the most dangerous--spot in the world, though I doubt whether in the year 1903 Piccadilly Circus does not run it hard.

The Central Railway Company approached the Corporation on the subject, and eventually it was agreed between the parties that the Railway Company, in return for being allowed the privilege of constructing their station beneath the open space, without payment, should make the public subways, and hand them over in perpetuity to the City.

So for many months the pavement in front of the Royal Exchange was disfigured by a lofty wooden hoarding, which completely concealed a shaft, wherein some mysterious work was progressing. But beyond this there was no outward indication of what was going on below; and, although the entire roadway in front of the Mansion House was being undermined, the vast traffic continued as usual.

Arranging this station proved to be one of the stiffest bits of engineering work ever attempted. Drain-pipes were ubiquitous--a perfect tangle that had to be diverted. There were old disused and long-forgotten pipes, electric cables, hydraulic power pipes, pneumatic tubes, gas and water mains--a maze and wilderness of underground communications. These were all rearranged in a special pipe-tunnel, 14 feet wide. Then, at a depth of about 20 feet, the booking-office was built, bit by bit, of steel-work, which had previously been temporarily put together in a field to ensure its fitting exactly into the excavation prepared for its accommodation--an area 145 feet one way and 75 feet the other, its outline being on the curve. Its roof, consisting of girders supporting steel troughing, was filled up with concrete, and finally with asphalte, upon which thousands of people pass daily without realising what is below them. Access to the booking-office is gained by numerous entrances _viâ_ the public subway: two on the Royal Exchange pavement, two at the bottom of Mansion House Place, one at the Poultry corner, and one at Walbrook, one in front of the Safe Deposit City buildings, two each at the corners of Princes Street and Cornhill, and one at St. Mary Woolnoth Church. The entire arrangement reminds one of a mole’s subterranean fortress, with its galleries for entrance and exit branching off in various directions.

These subways, immense conveniences which should be adopted at every _rond-point_ in London--though it is a strange fact that _habitués_ of the City seldom use them, they being patronised chiefly by the “work-girl” and by casual visitors to the central “square mile”--are 15 feet wide and 9 feet high, are lined with glazed brick, and have electric-lighted stairways at the above-mentioned places.

DESCRIPTION OF THE RAILWAY

Some fifty feet below the Bank of England Station are the twin-tunnels and their platforms, approached by five lift shafts of twenty feet, and one stairway shaft of eighteen feet diameter; at a deeper level still are the tubes of the City and South London Railway, crossing the City _en route_ to Islington.

These great passenger lifts work with wonderful smoothness (_facile descensus Averno est_), and without them no fewer than ninety-three steps would have to be painfully descended.

We are all familiar by this time with the other ten surface stations of the Twopenny Tube (at the Post Office, Marble Arch, etc.). They are nearly all alike, and look as if they were waiting for a substantial and lofty building to be erected upon them, and have little claim to architectural beauty. The platforms, necessarily rather contracted in area, are clean and bright, owing to the extensive use of opalite tiling and glazed bricks, ever spotless, and practically indestructible. Each train consists of six eight-wheeled bogie-cars, 45½ feet long, with well-upholstered seats, arranged longitudinally and crosswise, for forty-eight passengers. The lighting is effected by means of eight sixteen-candle-power incandescent lamps, supplemented by small shaded electric lights, excellent for reading by. The windows, of course, do not open, but practicable ventilating louvres are arranged above them. Entrance is obtained at each end of the car, and the telescopic gates are cleverly and expeditiously manipulated by the attendants. Straps are placed along rods on each side of the roof to aid passengers in traversing the cars, and above the seats are racks for parcels, etc.

The electric locomotives[4] are curious in shape, with the driver’s cabin in the middle, and a backward and forward slope for the apparatus looking like gigantic coal-scuttles back to back. They have eight wheels, and are fitted with motors, one for each axle. The current is collected from a central third rail by means of two cast-iron shoes which rub along it, and is led through an automatic circuit-breaker and switched to the controller in the driver’s cabin, thence to the motors, returning to the track rails through the wheels. The total weight of a locomotive is about forty-four tons, and the average speed is about fourteen miles an hour, the running time from the Bank to the western terminus being twenty-four minutes.

At Shepherd’s Bush--once, as its name implies, a rural suburban hamlet, suggestive of pastoral pursuits, flocks of sheep and lambs, washings and shearings of fleeces--is the chief power station of the Central, sub-stations being situated at the General Post Office, Marble Arch, and Notting Hill Gate.

The premises cover sixty-eight acres, with plenty of room for locomotive and car sheds, shunting tracks, boiler and engine houses, the latter most impressive from the size of their six Corliss compound horizontal engines, each rated at 1,300 horse-power, though, as in so much American machinery, the somewhat rough exterior detracts from the appearance, especially in the eyes of British engineers, accustomed not only to internal mechanical perfection--as in the Central’s engines--but to nicety of finish throughout. These giants are coupled direct to Thomson-Houston dynamos, with the capacity, if required, of 5,100 kilowatts, or 6,800 indicated horse-power.

Amongst other contemplated improvements is that of loop-lines between Liverpool Street and the Bank, which will materially help to accelerate the traffic.

Some remarkable results, not very satisfactory to those interested in vehicular traffic, have arisen from the opening of the Twopenny Tube. The standard of travelling has gone up steadily; improvements in ’buses are constantly demanded (garden seats, spiral spring cushions, etc.) and--somewhat slowly--conceded. Yet, to quote the words of an omnibus official, “_they (the public) want more!_” And this at a time when fares have steadily decreased, and the cost of fodder and maintenance have seriously increased. Worse still, the Tube’s existence has been keenly realised all along the line of its route, ladies especially preferring to go on a shopping expedition by means of the well-lit Tube than by the not over-clean, and decidedly slow and stuffy, omnibus. The London Road Car Company’s returns along Oxford Street and Holborn showed last year a decrease nearly equivalent to the Tube’s increase, and the London General Omnibus Company’s report for the half-year--December 1st, 1901--was so disappointing, owing to dear forage and decreased passenger traffic, that its stock fell at one bound ten points, from 105 to 95--a grave depreciation in value.

The Tube, during the six months ending December 31st, 1902, carried 22,425,776 passengers, a daily average of 121,879, out of which big total 2,770,854 were workmen at a penny per traveller. On Coronation Day 202,000 people journeyed by the Central.

ITS VENTILATION

At the commencement of its career the Tube’s atmosphere and temperature were remarkably sweet and equable, not varying much from 62° either in summer or winter. During a spell of hot weather it felt delightfully cool, and when east winds blew it was warm compared with the atmosphere outside.

Trips in the Tube were at one time seriously suggested for the cure of various maladies as a modification of that usual last resource of the medical profession, “change of air.”

Before the advent of the Tube, however, many fond mothers with little faith in the pharmacopœia regarded the Underground as a sanatorium for children’s complaints. Tunnel air, they affirmed, was good for croup, whooping-cough, and various other ailments. A doctor travelling on the Metropolitan once noticed a woman in the same compartment pull down the window upon entering a tunnel and hold outside a child she was carrying, so that the youngster might get the full benefit of the foul atmosphere. When the doctor inquired the reason for this extraordinary performance, she told him that “tunnel air” had been found to be a complete cure for croup. And only the other day an East End mother was discovered by a guard giving her baby two rounds on the Inner Circle because she had been told by a herbalist and bone-setter that a sulphurous atmosphere was good for whooping-cough.

But the ideal state of things in the Tube did not continue, and accusations respecting its ventilation began to be whispered about and finally proclaimed from the housetops (_vide_ Chapter XIX). However, practical steps were taken to ensure its efficiency, and at the last meeting of shareholders the chairman said that the Company had now a better character for ventilation than any other company in London.

At Bond Street Station a powerful fan has been placed at the base of the lift shaft, which, under ordinary pressure, removes the vitiated atmosphere from the permanent ways, fresh air taking its place at the various halting-places. The fan, forty-eight inches in diameter, and electrically driven, displaces 30,000 cubic feet of air per minute, and is capable of entirely exhausting the tunnels in a fraction over three minutes. The fan is worked every night after the trains have ceased running, and travellers by the early trains literally breathe the freshest of fresh air.

If a train in the Central should break down and come to a stop in the tunnel, though it would not, of course, be run into--the block system making that all but impossible--it might be necessary for the passengers to get out. The question naturally asked is, “How shall they alight? And where shall they go when they have alighted?” A fact that not every traveller knows is that a narrow path at the side of the rails leads to the nearest station, which cannot be more than a quarter of a mile off, so that no serious athletic feat is required to get out at the rear of the train and walk along the Tube.

ITS ANNUAL SALE OF LOST ARTICLES

Like the great trunk-lines, the Central has an annual sale of articles left in the carriages and not claimed; but the collection differs considerably from the miscellaneous assortment brought together by, say, the Great Northern or Great Western. Heavy impedimenta are, as might be expected, absent; but who could have been the owners of the 25 bottles of whisky, the 13 boxes of cigars and cigarettes, the 300 ladies’ umbrellas, and the 264 gentlemen’s umbrellas, the walking-sticks innumerable, the 150 pairs of spectacles and eyeglasses (showing that the light is so good that reading is a favourite way of passing the time), the 44 fur necklets, 920 pairs of gloves and 14 muffs, the 166 empty purses, and the multitude of books, chiefly fiction? While every week someone very mysteriously leaves behind a spirit-bottle--evidently recently emptied of its contents--enclosed in cardboard and done up in a neat parcel.

How the Twopenny Tube, and others like it, were constructed will be described in the next chapter.