Robin May wrote:

Paul Weaver wrote the following in:
news
Looking at the history of the tube, the vast majority of it was
built between 1890 and the first world war. Obviously this was all
entrepreneurs, capitalists that produced the finest public
transport system of its day.

There's also the point that the first tubes were built at a time when
there was almost nothing. I saw a post earlier today where someone made
the point that there was more railway building in the early years of
the 20th century than in the past 50 years. What a silly thing to point
out. 50 years ago there was already quite a large tube network whereas
a hundred years ago there was practically nothing. Of course more was
built then when there was nothing in existence.

There's also the point that, having built the lines, the entrepreneurs,
on the whole, failed to make money from them, and were eventually bailed
out by nationalisation in the '30s.

Presumably potential modern tube entrepreneurs know this, even if most
people don't.

Colin McKeznie