Subway

History

The first subway was that of London (1863), drawn at the origin by Locomotives with vapor. According to Christian Wolmar, the first promoter of the London subway was Charles Pearson who developed the idea in a lampoon of 1845 and supported of it several similar projects in the following years.

Its construction was decided by the London municipality to regulate the enormous problems of circulation which knew the metropolis at the time, with its 2,5 million inhabitants on 90 km. The problem was amplified by the urban geography of the time, rich in small tortuous streets.

The first section made 6,5 km length, and went from Farringdon Street to Paddington . The tunnel of this first subway consisted of a covered trench.

The use of the vapor caused important problems of ventilation of the tunnels, but this subway was a great popular success, and the number of lines increased rather quickly.

In 1890 was inaugurated the first electric line , regulating the problem of the vapor. All the lines of the Métro of London were electrified between 1890 and 1900.

The first European continental subway was that of Istanbul (“the Tunnel”) in 1871, followed Budapest (1896). The Métro of Paris, whose first line was brought into service for the World Fair of 1900, was with electric traction right from the start. Since, many other networks were built in the world.

See also: List of the subways of the world

With Paris, the urban subway was supplemented starting from the Années 1960 by the Réseau Regional express (the RER), composed of railway lines of suburbs connected between them by tunnels crossing the capital. The RER is a hybrid mode semi-subway, semi-train.

Currently, more the small town in the world having a subway (without concept of transport of mass) is Serfaus, commune of the the Austrian Tyrol .

Current techniques

The majority of the subways roll on traditional rails to standard spacing.

The tyred subway is a technology of French origin, developed starting from the Années 1950 by the RATP. The first system of entirely tyred subway is that of Montreal, built in collaboration with French engineers. The Subway of Mexico City and that of Santiago use also this technology.

The control of certain subways was automated as from the same time. Starting from the beginning of the Années 1980 appeared entirely automatic subways, without driver, with small gauge (Val), with Lille (1983), Toulouse (1993) and with Rennes in 2002, or with large gauge: the first was the line D with Lyon (1991), followed line 14 to Paris in 1998. The first automatic subways Japan board appear also at that time.

In the Years 1970, German cities, like Brussels, Charleroi and Antwerp, chose to produce a semi-subway, or pre-subway, by burying certain sections of their lines of Tramway. It is a hybrid mode, the subway-tram. With Brussels, the lines in question are designed from the beginning to be transformed later into heavy subways with few expenses, from where the term '' pre '' subway. In France, the town of Rouen chooses this type of material in 1994.

Sources

Christian Wolmar, The Subterranean Raiway. How the London Underground was built and how it changed the city forever , Atlantic Books, London, 2005;

See too

Internal bonds

List of the subways of the world

External bonds

Urbanrail, site of reference on the subways
Metro Bits
In how many subways around the world cuts you been?

Zh-min-nan: Chia̍t-ūn

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