On 7 June, 15:45, Michael Bell wrote:
In message
ups.com
* * * * * amogles wrote:

On 6 Jun., 16:58, john wright wrote:

"When there was only one line for the whole of London" What can that
refer to? Neither telephones nor rail lines makes much sense in this
context.
When the various "lines" that now form the London Underground were
built, they were separate railways and were referred to by their
names, ie C&SLR etc. I assume that the practice of calling them lines
must have come in when they were all part of London Underground. Does
anybody know when the term "line" first came into use in this context

There was a very interesting early history book about the London
Underground called "Rails through the clay" by Croombe and Jackson,

More recently, I was impressed with Christian Wolmar's book "the
subterranean railway" which is a little more focussed on the economic,
political and social aspects rather than the technological, but he
certainly gives Yerkes some good coverage.

which recounted how an American tycoon called Yerkes, who was a bit of
a wide boy, but he also funded the biggest astronomical telescope of
his day and had it called after himself, built the nucleus of the
London Underground. It was originally going to be cable-hauled, hence
the low profile. They were all nominally separate "lines" (an American
term) though in fact all owned by Yerkes, and he also introduced the
terms "northbound" and "southbound" to indicate direction of travel,
which also have more an American sound than British.

Now hang on a moment here, there are several independent events all
being conflated into one.

First of all, the only cable hauled line actually built was the Tower
Subway, which was the first "deep bore" tube line, with a very small
tunnel diameter indeed, and it did not last long, in part due to the
opening of Tower Bridge.

The same promoter who did the Tower Subway then came up with a more
ambitious project linking the City with suburbs in South London, hence
the name "City and South London Railway". It was planned to use
larger tunnels than the Tower Subway (large enough that standard gauge
track would fit), though still smaller than the current "tube" size.
During construction, the decision was taken to install electric
traction with locomotives rather than cable haulage. The design of
the northern terminus, at King William Street had been made with cable
haulage in mind, and the station was not well suited to electric
operation, so the opportunity was taken when the line was extended
northwards to replace it with a more suitable station at Bank.

By the time Yerkes[1] came on the scene, the C&SLR, Waterloo and City
and Central London Railway were all already operating [2], with
different tunnel sizes and different electrification schemes. Yerkes
bought the Metropolitan District, and bought a whole bunch of the
schemes for underground railways that had received parliamentary
approval after the success of the C&SLR, but had no money. He
consolidate these into three railway companies: the Great Northern,
Picadilly and Brompton Railway; the Charing Cross, Euston and
Hampstead Railway; and the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway.
Although each of these three, and the MDR, were run as separate
companies, they were built to a common design, with the same
electrification system (in the case of the MDR, only the
electrification was the same).

At this point, there are 6 tube lines, three in the Underground Group,
one a subsidiary of the LSWR, and two independent. The Underground
Group rectified this by buying the C&SLR and CLR, and converting them
to Yerkes standard [3]. The other important thing that the
Underground Group did was to introduce interavailable tickets and
single unified branding. Both Yerkes, and Albert Stanley (later Lord
Ashfield) both brought a significant amount of American terminology
and ideas to the Underground Group, I don't think the use of "line"
was one of them.

[1] having first encountered this interesting character in print, I
wondered for the longest time whether his name should be pronounced
"yerks" (to rhyme with jerks) or "yerkees" (to rhyme with turkeys). I
have since been told be someone I am prepared to trust in the matter
that the second option is the correct one.
[2] I can't remember off the top of my head when the Norther City line
opened, but it may also have been around pre-Yerkes.
[3] imperfectly in the case of the Central line, where the outer
conductor rail is a bit higher than on other lines because of the way
the tunnel linings were expanded.

Robin