The feasibility of an Inner Circle Tube, however, linking together all the lines, with ramifications to serve the suburbs, worked jointly under a pooling arrangement by the various companies, has commended itself to certain experts.
It is true that four of the great trunk lines are already connected by subways with the Inner Circle Railway—the Great Eastern at Liverpool Street; the Great Western at Praed Street; the London, Brighton, and South Coast at Victoria; and the South Eastern and Chatham at Cannon Street, Blackfriars, and Victoria. The Brighton Company has already a subway connection between London Bridge and the City and South London Tube Station there, and the Mansion House subway will by-and-by be similarly connected with the City and South London Bank Station.
Also there are the purely suburban lines to be considered, such as the South London Railway, worked by the Brighton Company; the Metropolitan Extension, a part of the Chatham Company’s local system; the West London Railway, which gives a north-to-south connection at Chelsea for several companies; the Hammersmith and City Railway; the Hampstead Junction Railway (from Willesden to Tottenham); and the local services of the London and North Western; the Great Northern Railway (already committed to a tube); and the Midland Railway, which, with the Great Northern, has access to the south of London, viâ Ludgate Hill.
But the matter now engaging public attention is not Subways, but Tubes—how to disentangle the different schemes, and evolve order out of chaos.
The Tubes open for traffic are the Waterloo and City Railway; the City and South London Railway; Clapham Common to the “Angel,” Islington; and the Central London from the Bank to Shepherd’s Bush. While those in progress more or less advanced, are the Great Northern and City Railway; the Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway; the Bank to Finsbury Park; the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway; Paddington to Waterloo, and thence viâ St. George’s Circus, Southwark, to the Elephant and Castle.
All last session members of the House of Commons were, so to speak, overwhelmed with Tubes.
Tubes to the right of them,
Tubes to the left of them,
Tubes in front of them,
Volley’d and thundered!
But the Select Committees fared worse, the task before them being even more arduous. There were promoters who sought for powers to construct Tubes to cross and recross proposed and existing lines, and even to bore parallel with others, while some wanted to create isolated and disconnected sections, leading apparently nowhere. Petitions and protests against the various schemes poured in from innumerable sources; from every quarter petitions in favour were also laid down at their feet. Truly, the members of the Committees found that of making many Tubes (as of books) there was no end, and that much railway promoting was a weariness of the flesh.
Long and loud waged the conflict of the various aspirants to bore through the foundations of London. The smaller promoters’ attention finally became fixed upon the financial and legislative duel of two magnates, each representing a similar and important scheme for joining together the existing unlinked metropolitan tube lines.
It was as if through some narrow gorge leading to desirable pasturage, the smaller denizens of wood and forest tumultuously endeavoured to force a passage, and falling out by the way, their strife was suddenly arrested to watch the single combat of two rival antlered monarchs of the glen, who fought to the death to obtain the sole right of way.