Katy Hannah: The Blog.

http://mhannah2.wix.com/londonunderground

 

MAPS PAGE:

There are countless different historical maps of the London Underground.  Early maps reflect the fact that the now conglomerate of lines and tracks which is the London Underground was actually a series of competing railway companies which sprang up over London in the late 1800’s.  These maps show that these competing lines frequently set up stops on the same block as their competitors in direct competition.  This reflects the difficulty often seen in older Tube maps as to identify the exact origins and original names of certain stations.  Many of these double stations have been merged into a single station on the now state-controlled underground system.    The above map on the left is from 1908, and is the first combined map ever published of the London Underground.  It was published by The Underground Electronic Railways Company of London with the cooperation of four separate railway companies.      London’s railways were finally nationalized on January 1st, 1948.  Since then, many modern maps have become extremely accessible, and are constantly changed.  They can be accessed here.

Harry Beck is the pivotal figure when talking about maps of the London Underground.  There are no competing maps to Beck’s diagrammatic one.  This map, while being rather handy in allowing the viewer to see even the most clustered areas of the Underground clearly, greatly over-exaggerate and under-exaggerate distances between stations.  Some argue about this misleading aspect of the map, which can cause tourists to take longer or more complicated routes because of the skewed distances depicted on the map.  It also may trick tourists into taking a ₤4.10 ride on the Tube instead of walking a distance — an act which would actually take less time than riding the tube.    What do you think of the diagrammatic version of the London Underground Map? Is it easier to read?  Click the above far right picture of Beck’s original map to visit fourthway’s webpage entitled “The Real Underground.”

UNIQUE UNDERGROUND STATIONS

Baker Street station, one of the original stations from the Metropolitan line, has stayed open while many other stations on the line have fallen into disuse.

It is not only a gorgeous example of original Tube architecture, but there are several major tourist attractions around the station, including the home/museum of fictional character Sherlock Holmes– 221B Baker Street.

Other sites include Regent’s Park and the open-air theatre, the Royal Academy of Music Museum, Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum, and Lord’s Cricket Ground.

Opened in 1848, The history of Waterloo Station is fascinating in itself, however, it is the tourist attractions surrounding it that help bring millions of tourists per year through its many escalators.

Tourist attractions in this area include the South Bank Poetry Library, the Sealife London Aquarium, the London Eye, Westminster Bridge, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, Somerset House (where they filmed scenes from Xmen: First Class), and the Tate Modern, to name only a few.

Waterloo Station has a magnificent cultural and railway history which I encourage you to explore.  This history includes the filming of many movies, including Waterloo Road and The Bourne Ultimatum.  The station itself has previously housed a station for the Eurostar, Europe’s cross-country railway.  Shut down in 2007, these platforms are now in disuse, though Waterloo continues service on Britain’s National Railway as well as the London Underground.

HISTORY

The London Underground started out just like every other public transit system.  The difference is simply that the London Underground came first.  It was the first rapid-transit system, as well as the first underground train system.

The very first line on the Underground was The Metropolitan Railway.  It serviced London for 70 years until it merged with the Underground Electric Railways Company of London to form the London Passenger Transit Board (LPTB).  The Metropolitan Railway was, and continued to be extremely successful until it became the LPTB.

The LPTB was nationalized in 1948. Subsequently, improvements have continued to be a continuing part of the Underground.  Continuing to improve and push innovation is a cornerstone of the Underground tradition.

Sections of the London Underground were used during World War II as air raid shelters during the Blitz.  Click here to view a list of bombings of Tube stations during the war which resulted in heavy casualties.

Interestingly, the Underground stations were not only used for shelter during the war, they were also used for transport, and one section of the Central line was actually used as a factory for aircraft parts.  The image above is property of the London Transport Museum.

CHANGING IDENTITY

The way the London Underground has been represented over the years has changed drastically.  As you can see here in Google Ngram viewers, the most significant changes to ​the way the London Underground has been represented in books over the years is in its name.  Prior to 1976, the term “Metropolitan Railway” was more prevalent when referring to the Underground, since then there has been a drastic increase in the use of the term “London Underground” in text.  Other terms, such as “The Tube” and “London Tube” have never had the popularity of either of the previous two terms. This may be due to Google’s higher percentage of academic texts over texts which would refer to the Underground with its more colloquial terminology.

CHARTS

As you can see, the above chart compares the 11 lines of the London Underground in terms of the total length of the line (route length), the number of stations on the line, and the peak number of trains running on the line (usually during holidays and peak rush hours).  Generally, the length of the line corresponds to the number of trains run during peak hour — in all but two instances, Victoria, and Waterloo & City.  This is due to the high number of government and business workers who commute during peak rush hours in the parts of the city in which these two lines are situated.

In this graph, you can see compared the annual exits and entries over the course of five years.  As you can see, the numbers have increased from 2007 to 2011.  This graph is also helpful in showing what days the Tube serves the most people.  Weekdays seem to be a very popular time to use the Underground, probably because so many people use the Underground for commuting.  On weekends, Saturdays are significantly more busy than Sundays, probably indicative of the lack of business and museum openings on Sundays throughout the city.

CONCLUSION

When researching the London Underground, I was shocked by the sheer amount of information that is available about every aspect of the Tube.  It made me wonder exactly how much more popular the history of the London Underground is in comparison with the histories of other subways around the world.  The results were staggering.  The term with the most hits overall was still “Metropolitan Railway” with “London Underground” coming in a second, overtaking the Met Railway in recent years.  The other terms, however, taken from lists of the largest subway systems around the world, do not compete with either term for number of mentions in historical texts throughout the years.  This may indicate several things, first, the London Underground, being the oldest subway system in the world, would obviously be of greater interest to a larger audience of historians, being a ground-breaking innovation.  This also is probably indicative of the pool of sources from which Google pulls this comparative data.  The bulk of the books from which Google pulls are English-language, which could possibly place emphasis on the history of English-speaking countries to the exclusion of non-English speaking countries, especially on the subject of the London Underground — a point of national pride in the United Kingdom.

However, one cannot argue that the London Underground is not the most significant subway system in the world.  AS the first subway system ever built, with the first underground railway, and the first underwater train tunnel, the London Underground has been pushing the boundaries of public transportation before most places in the world even had public transportation.  From its rich history to its long reputation as a profitable business, the London Underground breaks records as one of the most useful public transportation systems in the world.

§83 · May 8, 2013 · Uncategorized · (1 comment) ·


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