World's First Subway Opens: London Underground Begins
The Metropolitan Railway opened between Paddington and Farringdon Street on January 10, 1863, carrying 38,000 passengers on its first day using gas-lit wooden carriages pulled by steam locomotives through shallow tunnels dug just below the street surface. The smoke was so thick that passengers emerged blackened and coughing, but they kept coming back because the alternative was London's gridlocked streets, where horse-drawn omnibuses moved slower than walking pace. Charles Pearson, the solicitor who championed the project for twenty years, died months before opening day and never rode the train he fought for. Within a decade, the network expanded across London. Other cities followed: Budapest in 1896, Boston in 1897, Paris in 1900. Every urban metro system in the world descends from this first smoky tunnel beneath Victorian London.
January 10, 1863
163 years ago
Key Figures & Places
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