"Toby":
has/was there ever an idea to have First and Standard seating on
the underground network? When the underground was first built, was there
ever class segregation or have the toffs always had to mix with the
riff-raff on the underground?

Paul Scott:
The Metroplitan and District Railways definitely had different classes of
carriage on opening, but all the (limited) info I have suggests the 'tube
lines' from the C&SLR onwards, only had a single class.

The Metropolitan Railway, which always considered itself a main line,
had *three* classes when it opened in 1863. For the original route
from Paddington to Farringdon (now part of the Hammersmith & City Line),
single fares were 6d. first, 4d. second, and 3d. third. Likewise the
District, or Metropolitan District Railway to give it its full name.

In 1875 the Midland became the first major railway to abolish second class
(leaving first and third), and other British companies generally followed.
The Met and the District made the change when they introduced electric
trains in 1905. First class was withdrawn from some subsurface surfaces
in 1934-36 -- I don't have details -- and most of the remaining ones in
1940, leaving only the Aylesbury and Watford trains on the Met, which
had to compete with two-class main-line services. Both the Met trains
and their competitors became single-class in 1941, and that was that.

The Aylesbury service is also where the Metropolitan operated the two
Pullman cars that it obtained in 1910, which seated 19 passengers in
upholstered armchairs. These cars, which only made one or two round
trips a day in rush hours and after-theater, were withdrawn at about
the same time as the regular first-class services.

The deep-level tube lines have been single-class from the outset,
with the exception of the Great Northern & City Railway, the short
tube from Finsbury Park to Moorgate, which (although always intended
for through working with the main-line railways, as today) operated as a
self-contained route before 1976. This line was owned by the Metropolitan
Railway from 1913 to 1933, and accordingly operated two-class trains from
1915 until 1934 (but from 1916 on, off-peak services were single-class).

I should also mention the Tower Subway, the little cable-car shuttle
that ran under the Thames for a few months in 1870. All seats in the
12-passenger car were identical, but a first-class ticket (costing 2d.
instead of 1d.) gave priority in boarding.

(Sources: A History of London Transport, Rails Through the Clay, The
Oxford Companion to British Railway History, and an old posting of
mine whose source I forget.)
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "The time to make up your mind about people
| is never." --The Philadelphia Story

My text in this article is in the public domain.