Finsbury Park Tube Card, 1907

Comment by Antoinette on February 16, 2017 at 8:13

How marvellous...love it

Comment by Michele on February 16, 2017 at 10:33

Beautiful - what a great design - thanks for uploading it.

Comment by StephenBln on February 16, 2017 at 12:12

If I'm not mistaken, the train stock was American and each 'car' had a 'guard' .. which I think are both Americanisms..

Comment by StephenBln on February 16, 2017 at 12:20

The American connection is Charles Yerkes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Yerkes#London  At the time of opening, the tube railways felt 'velly American' to the Londoners..

Comment by Richard Woods on February 18, 2017 at 17:17

Not sure why they should feel American - London's tubes are the oldest in the world.... guards came from overground railways; use of railcar is a bit more obscure.

Comment by Hugh on February 18, 2017 at 18:13

It surprises me too, Richard, but the Edwardian rolling stock on the Piccadilly Line wasn't British. Half were built by Les Ateliers de Construction du Nord de La France at Blanc Maison near to the Belgian border. The others were built by the Hungarian Railway Carriage Company at Gyor. 

Inside the cars were finished in a fireproof mahogany veneer.

British rolling stock first made an appearance on the line with an order of 40 cars from Cammell Laird in 1919.

Comment by Richard Woods on February 18, 2017 at 18:39

I  guess that is because we started by running steam trains underground (What is now the Metropolitan line I think?) - with predictable results! So once the idea caught on we ended up buying foreign stock! Sound familiar?

Comment by StephenBln on February 19, 2017 at 19:43

No, Richard.. you've got that wrong. The Metropolitan is and never was a Tube. It's a sub surface railway. Something very different to a Tube. The CSLR was the first tube (opened 1890).

The three tube lines that opened in 1906/1907, Baker Street & Waterloo; GN, Piccadilly & Brompton; Charing Cross, Hampstead & Highgate, were all financed by Americans. All three lines had similar decor, stations and rolling stock. They were very different to the earlier British built lines CSLR & Central London Railway, both of which had a lavatorial feel to them - mostly white tiling.  Sir John Betjemen once reported that the lines also had their own smells. The Central London, for instance, smelt of sea air..

Hugh, the train stock was built an American design I believe and was similar and based on the US & Continental European streetcar/tram designs of the time.

Comment by Richard Woods on February 20, 2017 at 20:48

Point.

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