London Railways
In the End it was Worth the Trouble
Honors 680
Building the Modern Metropolis
4/30/2007
How the Introduction of the Railroads in London caused temporary hardships but enabled lasting benefits.
The Victorian period marked the most rapid advancement in railroad transportation in London. The year 1837 when Queen Victoria took the throne also marked the same year that the railroads came to London for the purpose of passenger service with the construction of Euston Station. The subsequent years of Queen Victoria's reign saw 18 major terminal stations constructed in Greater London, the last one in 1899.
Transportation in London prior to this period was abysmal. The city had grown to over 1,600,000 people by 1831, making it the world's largest city in history (surpassing Rome from the 1st century AD). The city was still relying on its few bridges and medieval infrastructure which was grossly inadequate and inefficient.
Railroads presented the ideal solution to London's transport problems. Parliament and people in powerful positions knew this and heavily invested in the construction of the terminal stations and the main lines snaking their way though the city.
There was a great demand for an increased capacity for moving goods into and from London, so the railway infrastructure was built in a hurry to accommodate the need. Since railways needed a large amount of land on which to build, railway companies had to find landlords willing to sell their land to be converted to railways. If the landlords were particularly resistant to sell, the railway companies could legally take their land for use in the 'greater good.' Much of this land was in the industrial area and low-class housing areas on the south and east side of the city. Since the renters had no legal way to object, they were evicted from their homes which were then razed to make way for the lines or terminals.
The reduction in housing space and the subsequent eviction of 100,000 residents in the way of the railways made the already dire housing shortage worse. Railway owners conceived that evicted tenants could move to cheaper land farther outside of the city along the railway corridors and commute. Their idea made sense on a conceptual level, but it was initially impractical due to the high cost of daily train tickets to work.
The solution presented itself when the 'Worker's Wage' was created where commuters could ride the trains at certain times of the day for a drastically reduced price. Thus it was economically feasible for them to live outside of the city and ride the trains to and from work. Also, the introduction of the Underground Railway provided a means of avoiding much demolition and instead tunnel under the city.
Due to the pressure to make improvements to London's transport system as quickly as possible, the poor and politically voiceless people who lived in the path of the railways were evicted from their homes and treated as less significant in favor of progress. The poor treatment of these people and the suspension of property rights, while regrettable, was necessary to establish a working rail system in London in a timely manner which eventually helped the same people live a better life years later in the suburbs. The growth was controlled by Parliament early on and was strategically implemented to provide the greatest efficiency for the least amount of damage to the city. With the new and efficient passenger rail system, the Underground, and the creation of the Workman's Fare, everyone from the lowly factory worker to the well-to-do aristocrat could use the system to easily, quickly and relatively cheaply get to any location in London.
London before the Railroad
London Congestion
Image 1 – Congestion in London seen by
Gustave Doré. Streets in the mid 19th
century were clogged with carts,
omnibuses and livestock.
The method of transportation leading up to the start of the Victorian period was fairly haphazard and unorganized. With London's increased population, the narrow medieval roads were not equipped to handle the traffic. The traffic included not only pedestrians and carts but stage coaches, commuting omni-busses, and farmers driving cattle through the streets to the live meet market. The few bridges and inefficient, narrow streets were strangling the city from getting the resources it needed in a timely manner. The fastest way was by omnibus, but they were usually over-crowded and too pricy for the working class. As a result, a significant portion of the population walked to and from work each day, which required them to live within a few miles of their employer. With the dramatic rise in industrial production there was an increasing demand for workers which lead to an increasing density in the workers' neighborhoods.
Railway Growth in England
By the 1850s the railway building in the whole of England was in full force. Over 6,000 miles of railroads were already built, with an additional 10,000 authorized by Parliament. Towns and cities were rapidly being connected by a system that was able to move a large amount of goods in a relatively short time. To access the industrial areas of cities, terminal stations were built as close as possible to the developed areas. This began in London with the London Bridge Station, built in 1836 on the south east side of the city, near to the markets and docks. Additional stations were built along the eastern side of the city to complement the boats and horse-drawn carts bringing goods to the city. By increasing the quantity of goods moved to and from London the profits of the entire industrial sector were bolstered which subsequently trickled down to the financial district and the people as a whole.
Monetary cost of the Railroad
Creating a Profitable Business
While a strong transportation system was important in the minds of those in Parliament and the railway companies, the companies and their investors were interested in making a profit from their railways. Logically, though, in order to gain the most profit they had to design the most efficient system so that it would be available to the maximum number of people for the least amount of initial investment. According to Kellett, the mindset of the railway companies was "what balance could be expected between the direct private costs and private benefits of the investment?" Railway companies discovered that they had to spend a large amount of capital on incomplete or unfinished railroads such as segments of track that were under-used, and blocks of land that could eventually be used to connect rail corridors. These initial investments were useless and turned no or very low profit, but once strategically linked together formed a vital connection that would move large numbers of people. These small-gain investments had to be supported by fairly high ticket prices on the completed railway lines. This piece-mail system was typical of the early period of construction, but once major lines were established the focus changed to improve the existing infrastructure.
Construction Expenses
The incomplete system was also a result of difficulties encountered in the processes of construction. Railroads required leveled surfaces for construction, so long spans had to be elevated on viaducts or bridges or tunneled or channeled through the ground. The latter was especially expensive so the railway companies tended to create long viaducts to avoid hills rather than tunnel under them. London was not very hilly, with the exception of St. Paul's hill, but even a small slope required a lot of infrastructure. As a consequence, it was sometimes more cost effective for railway companies to take a less direct route if it meant avoiding hills or valleys.
The only part of the rail line that was more expensive to build than a tunnel was the last mile or so of track to an urban terminal station. In the case of Euston in 1837, the last mile of track cost an estimated 380,000 pounds, which would be 38 million dollars today. The staggering amount of money was well worth the investment. Figures from the railway companies at the time showed that the last 400 yards (quarter mile) to Fenchurch Street cost 250,000 pounds, but resulted in a 50% increase in traffic in 3 years. Attaining that last mile greatly increased the number of people that the railway could service, but at the high expense of construction. The cost was mainly due to the increasing density of the area, and the more valuable the land was. There was a point of diminishing returns where the ground covered was not worth the cost, and the railroad companies found that that area was across the street from the fully built-up areas. The main street allowed for the secondary forms of transportation such as omnibuses and carts, to carry the passengers or goods to their final destination. This major street that acted as an existing established transport route was an important place for the lines to end, and it justified removing the buildings in its path. Ending the station farther outside of town would decrease its efficiency and increase the cost of traditional ground transportation.
Property Expenses
Unlike roads providing a surface for traditional ground transportation, the railroads could not go anywhere due to the physical restraints of the technology. The transition from adaptable animals to mindless machines for transport required that the roads be more uniform. Early engines could pull about 20 passenger cars, which was remarkably powerful for their time, but the environment in which they could pull the cars was limited. Because an iron wheel on an iron rail has little traction, anything more than a tiny fraction of an inch on elevation in every foot of distance would prevent trains from ever leaving the station, or more dangerously, not be able to stop. Generally the grade had to be less than 1 foot up or down in 70 long, and in the case at Euston when a slight hill forced that number to 1:60, they had to build a cable system to drag the trains up the slight hill to the station. In addition to gradual changes in elevation, trains needed gradual curves with radii in the hundreds of feet. A train, because of the wide spacing of its wheels, needs a great distance to make a turn. This is exacerbated when there are multiple lines running parallel, because the space between the lines needs to be expanded so that two passing trains don't scrape together rounding bends.
As a consequence for the railroad's need for land, by the 1860s railways occupied as much as 10% of land in London. They held about the same amount of property as the Crown within the city limits and more than the Church making them the single largest (collective) landowners. In addition, because of the nature of the railroads, it is estimated that they exerted an additional influence on the usage of 20% of the city properties. While they did not own these other properties, the presence of a railway determined how these properties would be used; this included the type of occupancy, where the windows were placed, access to the buildings due to severed roads and more.
When all of this was taken into account, there were relatively few paths that the railroads could actually take. Therefore it was necessary, in many cases, for particular building to be demolished because there was no other route that was feasible. These buildings, unfortunately, were often residential housing.
Government Assistance
The railway companies Railroads operated in the same way that any other businesses at that time period in London, except for one huge difference: railway companies were granted the power of 'Compulsory Purchase' whereby they could buy properties from unwilling sellers. This was granted to the railway companies because Parliament felt that the building of the railways was 'in the public good' and was more important to put the railroad through than protect the personal property rights of landowners. The disruption of the railways was viewed as a necessary evil in the name of progress because in the long run the benefit they would provide to industry and commerce would outweigh the human cost.
Image 2 – Illustration of the Limits of
Deviation. 1: Existing urban fabric, 2:
Construction of the Railroad, condemned
properties bought by the railway
companies is highlighted, 3: Limits of
Deviation allow the companies
to purchase adjacent properties for line.
An additional way that railroads acquired the land they needed was provided by a law called 'Limits of Deviation' where properties adjacent to the existing ones bought by the railway could be also bought through compulsory purchase. These adjacent properties combined with the ones actually purchased formed a very wide band that railway companies had control over. The purpose for these limits of deviation are such that if the railway company needed to make minor changes to the course of the line, such as widening a curve or adding additional lines, the land would be available to the companies without going through an extensive and time consuming process of litigation and negotiation.
As a result, even the most powerful landlords had to bow to the railway companies. Thus it was not exclusively the underclass that was affected by the land seizure by the railroads. The process was a negotiated one, and those who owned land were appropriately compensated (usually generously). With the new lands opened to development by the railway, landowners could buy suburban land, develop it, and lease it to those who would be most interested in living next to a quick form of travel to downtown. The people most interested were often the workers who formerly walked to work and had their houses destroyed or their rents became unaffordable. The regular transportation system allowed them to live in the suburbs but work in the city.
Human Cost of the Railroad
Effect on Housing
Image 3 – row houses seen by Gustave
Doré. Note the steam engine on the
viaduct in the background.
The opportunities provided by the railroads were not well perceived by the working class. The writings of Dickens in particular portrayed the railways as being "a mindless juggernaut grinding private rights into the ground for the blind quest for profit." (Kellett, 25) For those houses lucky enough to not be demolished by the railway, there were certain side effects that the railroads caused. One of the most noticeable effects was the smoke and noise. A thick, black coal smoke belched from the engines, and given London's foggy climate could linger and sit low against the ground and contributed to the general dirtiness of the city. The rattling, hissing and clanking of the trains as they rumbled past were an additional source of complaint. The vibrations from the trains were also surprisingly problematic. Railroads were often next to the industrial areas, and craft makers and especially watchmakers complained about the vibrations from the trains damaging their work. (Kellet, 37) The remaining houses became even more valuable because of the increased demand and as a result rents increased as did density. The result from removing thousands of houses was that the people did not move away, but just relocated within the area, causing the same number of people to live in fewer houses than before.
In addition, Dickens wrote about his distaste for the railroad in his novel, Dombey and Son:
Houses were knocked down; streets broken through and stopped; deep pits and trenches dug in the ground; enormous heaps of earth and clay thrown up; buildings that were undermined and shaking, propped by great beams of wood. Everywhere were bridges that led nowhere; thoroughfares that were wholly impassable; Babel towers of chimneys, wanting half their height; temporary wooden houses and enclosures, in the most unlikely situations; carcasses of ragged tenements, and fragments of unfinished walls and arches, and piles of scaffolding, and wildernesses of bricks, and giant forms of cranes, and tripods straddling above nothing. Boiling water hissed and heaved within the dilapidated walls; whence, also, the glare and roar of flames came issuing forth; and mounds of ashes blocked up rights of way, and wholly changed the law and custom of the neighbourhood. — An excerpt from Dombey and Son (chapter 4), by Charles Dickens
Dickens did experience the effect of the railways first hand, however, his opinion of railways was probably colored by an accident he was involved in 1865 when his train ran off a viaduct in Stapleton and few survived.
Other sources also agreed that the railroads were too aggressive with their building. The Morning Herald in 1834 remarked that in, "besieged towns, or in conflagrations, demolitions have been sanctioned, but they should not be for private profit."
The effect of railroad building was not felt exclusively by the poor; several well-do-do landowners objected to the land seizure also. Talbot Q.C. said to the council for the Manchester and Southampton Railway in 1846 that, "...if I represented only so many lots of potato-ground, I am entitled to call upon my learned friend to make out, affirmatively, his right to violate the common law of the land; which common law says with respect to the land, as to the house, of an Englishman, it is not compulsorily to be taken from him, except upon the clearest proof of the greatest and most undeniable public necessity."
Reform of Railroads
Railway 'Mania'
Image 4 – Combined proposals by railway
companies in 1846. Black lines and
shapes are railway lines and terminals.
The height of the enthusiasm for railways was around 1846, when no fewer than 19 proposed termini in central London would have "completely altered the topography and character of…London. Not even the most laissez-faire of administrations could sit back and the wholesale demolition and severance of urban property and the intersection of crowded thoroughfares which the schemes…would involve. The Metropolis would literally have been cut to pieces." (Kellett, 34) The competing plans and routes, if they were all realized, would have condemned about one quarter of all buildings in London. At this point in time the owners and investors of the railways were so focused on making as many routes to extract the most amount of money from transportation services that they would, if allowed, literally over-saturate the area with stations and a massive network of rails.
Parliament Takes Control
Parliament took notice that the proposals were getting out of hand and they felt the companies needed more regulation. A witness to the Commissioner of Railroads said that, "it strikes me we have been a little railway mad, as if everything was to give way to railways: there is an immense mass of the public to be considered, hundreds and thousands, who have nothing to do with railways, and never will have; they want to get about, and are entitled to that consideration which is necessary for an increasing population."
Some members of Parliament also took notice of the effect on the working class. A man named Pearson (not Charles Pearson, who envisioned the Underground) asked, "What happened to the poor who were displaced by railway rebuilding? A poor man is chained to the spot; he has not the leisure to walk, and he has no the money to ride. They are crowded together still ore, they are pressed together more densely in a similar description of houses to those which the formerly inhabited."
This concern led to the formation of a committee lead by Lord Shaftesbury in 1853 to determine "whether those houses can be taken without…injuring such persons (of the labouring class), and without being likely to [cause] any overcrowding of any other dwellings." This was known as the 'Shaftesbury Standing Order.' Other standing orders introduced by the group included one that, "clearance [of housing] was to be gradual, re-housing to proceed simultaneously, and local authorities to ensure that notice to quit was not served subsequently on those re-housed," meaning that people who were moved out of their houses would not then be forced to move by another project (at least for a while).
Parliament's Response
Image 5 – Forbidden Zone regulation
enacted by Parliament in 1848 forbidding
construction of railways in the shaded
(inner-city) area.
In response to the fervor of building by 1846 that had Parliament concerned, they decided to exert more control over the building by passing a series of laws and regulations. The most important of which was creating the 'Forbidden Zone' which defined an area near the central and west side of London that was off limits for terminal and rail construction. This was passed in 1848 and drew a line along major streets that outlined the center city that they wished to preserve from the penetrations of the railways. Another important change in the way that Parliament legislated railways was the prior conditions of laissez-faire, or loose regulation, were changed and new requirements were established. Parliament called for specific information about locations and paths of the railways, which buildings and properties were condemned, and detailed financial and potential profit. Each piece of the process was approved separately, which slowed down the process somewhat, but more importantly gave Parliament more power to turn down specific schemes that they felt would cause undo damage to the established city or for whatever other reasons they saw the proposal as being unfit.
The railway companies obeyed this Forbidden Zone and subsequent rail stations (with some exceptions in 1865) were built right up to the border of the Zone but no further. Parliament's new regulations were very effective so that the next 17 of 19 new proposals were rejected and the two that were permitted were significantly modified to reduce the impact on the area.
The Final Pieces
Workman's Fare
Parliament continued to regulate the railway companies after creating the Forbidden Zone. An important act that was passed was the Cheap Trains Act of 1883 which spelled out how the 'Workman's Fare' was to be implemented. The principle was to allow regular laborers to ride the trains during certain periods of the day for half-price or less. Since regular travelers usually weren't riding the trains at 5 am when the work day started, it paid for the railroad companies to run special trains for commuters. The reduced fare also allowed workers to live in the suburbs and commute to work. Previously, the cost of the tickets was prohibitively expensive and workers chose to remain in the city. The Workman's Fare allowed the railroad companies to help the same people they displaced with their projects and make a tidy profit doing so.
Underground Railway
Image 6 – One of the stations on The
Underground Railway. The openings were
possible because the line was
constructed just below the road surface.
The other component that completed a missing link in the transport network of London was the Underground Railway. It was to be the first subterranean railway in 1863, though the idea came as early as 1845. Spearheaded by Charles Pearson, he encouraged Parliament for the idea and by 1860 the funds had been established and construction could begin. It was opened between Paddington Station and Farringdon Street and was instantly popular in spite of some concerns that people would not be comfortable traveling underground. It proved to be a logical solution to the problem of improving transportation in dense urban areas, which instead of razing thousands of buildings to install a railway corridor the railway companies could simply tunnel under ground. The cost was extremely expensive, and some buildings still did need to be demolished, companies did not have to purchase as much land because they were using a different stratum of the city instead of working and competing on one level with roads and buildings.
Image 7 – A cross-section of the Victoria
Embankment showing how the
underground Railway didn't compete
with the street.
It is hardly disputable that the railroads were instrumental in bringing London into the 20th century as a leading industrial capital and maintained its status as the world's largest city. The railways opened up the rest of the country to better means of trade which fueled the industrial revolution. With London's booming population more resources needed to be brought in from farther away and the railways facilitated this. It was no longer possible for local farmers to stock the local markets, so a much larger farming base was needed to feed the city. Aside from foodstuffs, the building boom needed natural resources such as wood, coal and iron which had to be imported from elsewhere in the United Kingdom and the railroads provided a better system of transportation than shipping by sea.
The railways dramatically increased the speed of travel and communication. Letters via the postal service which used to take weeks to reach their destination could be there in a few days. The newly developed telegraph system ran wires along the existing routes laid down by the railways which provided for easy maintenance. Trips by carriage also were difficult and slow where trips by train, for the appropriate price, would afford a smooth ride in luxury.
The flexibility and improvements of transportation and communication that the railroads provided were well worth their monetary cost. The social cost of displacing people living in the paths of the railroads in London was unfortunate but the railways provided new opportunities for living in the suburbs as well as a means to enlarge the industrial and commercial sectors of London and England as a whole. Parliament's intervention in the late 1840s prevented the over-enthusiastic railroad companies from destroying too much London's character by rampant construction progress that threatened to cut up the city's urban fabric. Through the strategic regulation of the railway building by Parliament, the development of the Underground Railway and the implementation of the Workman's Fare people in London enjoyed less congestion, increased capacity for shipment of goods, and the working and middle classes lived in cleaner, spacious, more affordable houses in the suburbs.
Bibliography
Betjeman, John. London's historic railway stations. London: Murray, 1972.
Biddle, Gordon. The Railway heritage of Britain: 150 years of railway architecture and engineering. London: M. Joseph, 1983.
Biddle, Gordon. Victorian stations; railway stations in England & Wales, 1830-1923. Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1973.
Francis, John. History of the English railway; its social relations & revelations, 1820-1845. New York: AM Kelley, 1968.
Jackson, Alan. London's termini. New York: AM Kelley, 1969.
Kellett, John R. Impact of railways on Victorian cities. London, Routledge & Paul., 1969.
Meeks, Carroll. Railroad station: an architectural history. Secaucus, NJ: Castle Books, 1978.
Nock, Oswald. Underground railways of the world. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1973.
Sheppard, Francis. London 1808-1870: The Infernal Wen. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971.
Simmons, Jack. Railway in England and Wales, 1830-1914. Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1978.
Symes, Rodney. Railway architecture of Greater London. Reading, Osprey Publishing, 1973.
Image Credits
Cover - Simmons
1 – Kellett (Gustave Doré)
2 – Alex Fortney
3 – Kellett (Gustave Doré)
4 – Kellett
5 – Alex Fortney
6 – Nock
7 – Nock
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