London Banter - View Single Post - TV Alert: Building The London Underground

Recliner[_2_] · July 12th 12, 10:24 AM posted to uk.transport.london

On Thu, 12 Jul 2012 08:48:38 +0000 (UTC), d
wrote:

On Thu, 12 Jul 2012 00:47:21 -0700 (PDT)
peter wrote:
Interesting to watch, yes, but had I known nothing about tube
beforehand I would have learned:-

1. There were no underground railways in London before the City and
South London Tube
2. This line was build using cut and cover methods
3. It was steam powered.

Yes, the Paris section was interesting, and new to me, but given the
above I am not sure how complete a picture it is.

Or how much of it was true given the howlers in the parts about LU.

Was the NYC the first to use electric traction (I doubt that) or the first
to use EMUs (which I might believe)?

The C&SLR was electric loco-hauled from its inception in 1890, as was
the CLR from 1900. Both switched to EMUs in due course, and I think
the NY Subway was a pioneer of those (certainly the London sub-surface
lines adopted US technology for their EMUs).

One other mistake in the programme was to suggest that the early EMUs
had all axles powered; in fact, most were unpowered. It's only
recently (starting with the 1992 stock, and now with the 2009 and S
stocks) that LU has had trains with all axles powered. I don't know
about US practice, but would doubt that their early electric trains
had even a majority of axles powered.