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It was the dawn of 1863,

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and London’s 
not-yet-opened subway system,

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the first of its kind in the world, 
had the city in an uproar.

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Digging a hole under the city 
and putting a railroad in it

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seemed the stuff of dreams.

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Pub drinkers scoffed at the idea

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and a local minister accused the railway
company of trying to break into hell.

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Most people simply thought the project,

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which cost more than
100 million dollars in today’s money,

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would never work.

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But it did.

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On January 10, 1863,

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30,000 people ventured underground 
to travel on the world’s first subway

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on a four-mile stretch of line in London.

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After three years of construction
and a few setbacks,

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the Metropolitan Railway 
was ready for business.

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The city’s officials were much relieved.

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They’d been desperate to find a way

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to reduce the terrible 
congestion on the roads.

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London, at the time the world’s largest 
and most prosperous city,

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was in a permanent state of gridlock,

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with carts,

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costermongers,

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cows,

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and commuters jamming the roads.

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It’d been a Victorian visionary, 
Charles Pearson,

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who first thought of putting railways 
under the ground.

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He’d lobbied for underground trains 
throughout the 1840s,

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but opponents thought the idea
was impractical

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since the railroads at the time 
only had short tunnels under hills.

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How could you get a railway 
through the center of a city?

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The answer was a simple system 
called "cut and cover."

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Workers had to dig a huge trench,

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construct a tunnel out of brick archways,

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and then refill the hole 
over the newly built tunnel.

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Because this was disruptive

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and required the demolition 
of buildings above the tunnels,

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most of the line went
under existing roads.

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Of course, there were accidents.

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On one occasion, a heavy rainstorm 
flooded the nearby sewers

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and burst through the excavation,

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delaying the project by several months.

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But as soon as 
the Metropolitan Railway opened,

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Londoners rushed in 
to ride the new trains.

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The Metropolitan quickly became 
a vital part of London’s transport system.

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Additional lines were soon built,

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and new suburbs grew around the stations.

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Big department stores opened 
next to the railroad,

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and the railway company 
even created attractions,

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like a 30-story Ferris wheel in Earls
Court to bring in tourists by train.

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Within 30 years,

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London’s subway system covered 
80 kilometers,

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with lines in the center of town
running in tunnels,

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and suburban trains operating 
on the surface, often on embankments.

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But London was still growing,

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and everyone wanted 
to be connected to the system.

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By the late 1880s,

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the city had become too dense with
buildings, sewers, and electric cables

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for the "cut and cover" technique,

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so a new system had to be devised.

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Using a machine 
called the Greathead Shield,

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a team of just 12 workers could 
bore through the earth,

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carving deep underground tunnels 
through the London clay.

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These new lines, called tubes,
were at varying depths,

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but usually about 25 meters deeper than 
the "cut and cover" lines.

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This meant their construction 
didn’t disturb the surface,

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and it was possible 
to dig under buildings.

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The first tube line, 
the City and South London,

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opened in 1890 and proved so successful

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that half a dozen more lines 
were built in the next 20 years.

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This clever new technology was even used 
to burrow several lines

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under London’s river, the Thames.

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By the early 20th century,

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Budapest,

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Berlin,

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Paris,

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and New York

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had all built subways of their own.

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And today, with more than 160 cities 
in 55 countries

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using underground rails 
to combat congestion,

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we can thank Charles Pearson
and the Metropolitan Railway

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for getting us started on the right track.