There's a similar situation in Chicago. A local telephone company got a charter to build a number of tunnels beneath the downtown area of the city, ostensibly for the running of telephone cables, but the charter was vague enough to allow them to construct a network of narrow-gauge freight railroads. Powered by overhead wire, it was used for parcels, mail, merchandise, but most importantly delivering coal and carrying away ashes, garbage, and excavation spoils. It even connected with some of the main line stations via elevators. Eventually trucks took the package delivery business, and buildings switched from their own coal furnaces to gas, making the system obsolete. All the tunnels are still down there, used for their original stated purpose, communications cables, but nobody paid it much attention until a pile-driver accidentally cracked the tunnel at the Kinzie Street Bridge under the Chicago River. Since the old tunnel connections weren't watertight, a number of downtown buildings flooded.
I think the connections were tight - they just didn't have airlocks at the tunnels' portals into the skyscrapers that they served. So it was an excellent way to introduce as much of the Chicago River as you wanted to your basements; particularly your basements containing all of your infrastructure like electrical distribution, heating, etc.
When i lived in London I took the tube for granted. Now a rural-dwelling exile I appreciate it's intriguing history, quirks and oddities now thanks to channels such as this and others. An interesting tale Ii can regale a daughter with when visiting her there and being stuck in traffic on the Tower Bridge Road again!
Has to be said, the hydraulic system that existed in London was never matched elsewhere for sheer size and scope, running lifts, machinery, dock cranes and machines it was a true industrial giant only overtaken by water and electricity and was still in some use up til the 70's too.
It was good to see the tunnel miners using the PPE of the time, YORK'S used to hitch the trouser bottoms up. This saved them dragging in the muck and trousers didn't need adjusting to kneel down.
Yess!! Those same shadowy forces that silenced the inventor of the car that ran on water back in the 40's will stop at nothing to eradicate the memory of underground cable-car systems wherever it might manifest...
I have been down the tunnel. There's not much to see down there and you've got to be pretty agile as it's full of dusty, dirty pipes, conduits etc. I would say that the air down there is just about at the limit of what you can cope without breathing apparatus. Written from a visit around 1996. Sorry, no photos- at the time it was A) unexpected and B) just another dirty hole in the ground that I had to visit. I didn't even know its significance until years later, which makes me think it must have been the South shaft we went down.
The water mains through the subway were actually abandoned around 20 years ago. Last I heard it was in use by Mercury Communications. Presumably it passed on through mergers & acquisitions to whichever company now has Mercury's former London assets.
Yes that's right - the London Hydraulic Power Company was bought by Mercury so that it could lay part of its fibre network ring around and through the City. Mercury became Cable & Wireless Communications which became ntl which became ntl-Telewest which eventually became Virgin Media. I assume they still have fibre optic cables running through.
Another excellent episode. I never knew of this train, although oddly enough, I knew of the tunnel. Always wonderful to learn something new, especially when as interesting as this
Definitely innovative. Just because of the fact it paved the way for the underground and kept reinventing its purpose and is still used today. Plus it was the first of its kind. Very interesting thanks 🙏
I've watched a few of your videos up to seeing this one, methinks you suffer from having your tongue firmly wedged in your cheek! Those puns, you tell!
This is what, in various branches of engineering in various fields, is called a 'proof of concept'. Even if not intended as such, the Tower Subway seems to have been an excellent proof of concept for deep level underground railways all over the world :)
Thanks for this video Jago, great collection of footage and nice background! I recently read the “Mycroft Holmes” books by Abdul Kareem Jabbar (not bad at all, I thought) ad at some point young Sherlock is spirited away by some urchins in a disused tunnel train. Nice to see that there was some fact inspiring that bit of fiction :)
ALways a great day when I find a channel worth subscribing to. Wish there were channels of this calibre dedicated to Liverpool. Until there is, London it is :) Thanks for the fine videos.
I don't know, it's probably common knowledge on Merseyside, but are you aware of "The Dockers' Umbrella", aka, The Liverpool 'El', ie Elevated Railway (It may have been known by a different name). Sorry, I don't have a URL but there are a number of videos about it on RU-vid. Unlike, say, the DLR it was a proper full size train on full sized track. It ran pretty well the length of the city, North to South, serving the whole of the Waterfront/Docks area. I think the reason it's no more is that the "permanent way" had become dangerously run down- apparently quirks of its construction made it particularly prone to rusting and it was deemed cheaper to pull it down and start over than to try and repair it. Unfortunately, as tends to be the way with these things, they got the demolition part right, but strangely, they never got around to the rebuilding. Kind of sad, that...
You mention the London Hydraulic Power Company: I've seen that mentioned, and the idea of a network of hydraulic power is fascinating. Do you think there are enough material remains to make it worthwhile to do a video on it?
Silly question, do you have any indo on when London wanted to encase Tower Bridge in a glass frame to modernize it? I think it might have been the 1960s. I've seen it mentioned multiple times on TV shows, but they never go into any detail further than a photo.
Dear Jago very interesting subject this 1944 plan however what a about a feature length video of all lines in the series we could then crack a bottle and and toast you out there avoiding the virus and any stray tube trains keep up the good work
Until WW1 Brits rarely queued. Early film footage shows them just piling onto buses and trains. And major Post Offices were a free-for-all until a few decades ago.
I knew about this (of course!) but I had never made the 'Tube' connection. Of course, not just technically, this WAS the first deep level tube. It was deep, it was a tube and it had a railway - what more do you want??
Another little gem - the things I am learning! One thiing I never really understood about Tower Bridge. Why did it have to be the type which could open? Yes, I accept that being such it allowed taller ships slightly further up the Thames than otherwise BUT hoenstly, the gap between Tower Bridge and London Bridge is hardly huge - was there really a demand for such a bridge? Were there really so many tall ships that 'needed' to gain access to the quays available - of which there were only a handful. I can't help but feel that had it not been a cantilever design no one would really have cared. Ships the couldn't get through would have docked lower down and we wouldn't have had the fine structure that we do. Any offers on why it was deemed 'necessary' as opposed to 'desirable'?
The thames stevedores and quay owners were a very vocal and powerful political lobby at the national, and more important city corporation level. Tower Bridge itself being built by the Corporation of London from the levies raised on warehousing goods through the pool of london.
@@highpath4776 So, I guess you're saying that it was deemed commercially viable, or at least, thats was the argument presented? I wonder how that actually worked out?
Some interesting detail here I didn't know, like the surviving entrances. I'm curious about the stationary steam engine(s). Which side of the river was it, or were there two? I assume it was at least near the surface, so did the cable have a vertical section?
I've come back to this again some time after my first viewing. And it has lost none of its charm and educational value. I wonder how they kept it on track while they were tunnelling it. Not by GPS, that's for sure. And you could reasonably point out that the track came after the tunnelling ;=}} Thanks JH, Simon T
Another excellent video. As a photographer and stock video maker, I’m also fascinated by subway stations and trains. I’ve taken many videos and photos of them and as soon as things are back to normal (12 months, if we’re lucky), I plan on doing so here in Mexico City, which also has a pretty large underground system. Thanks for the video!!
History is written by the winners,they claim all magnificent structures were suddenly all built then. There's proof they are all older advanced civilization.
@@JagoHazzard Sure, but people walked much further back then, especially if they're running from the law. Plus, it was more of a rumor than a proven fact.
Those First Class tickets weren't really queue jumping. They were the equivalent to getting a "front of the line" or "express" pass at today's amusement parks. Perfectly legal.
@@fosterfuchs For fun parks, it's a win-win situation. Get more revenue per person and get then through faster to pay and go on another ride faster. People standing in queues are not making money for the park !
They could of kept it as a foot tunnel, you got quite a few subways, I don't see why they couldn't ov kept it open, oh yeah the boats and the bridge lol
This is the 4th video of yours I have watched and I will be subscribing. But I will be watching all videos at 1.25 the speed. You talk a little too slow for me. Nothing at all against you as your videos are great , just my personal preference. Plus it means I can watch more videos in one sitting :D
not even close to an elon musk boring... arrangement betting elon never got the idea of the politics they had in california over rights of passage... let alone a queueing arrangement