“A railway encased in glass”: What the London Underground could’ve been | QI – BBC

“A railway encased in glass”: What the London Underground could’ve been | QI – BBC

the initial plan for London’s
underground was to have it above ground
so not underground at all okay so the
designer of the great exhibition anybody
Dave Big Dave so Joseph Paxton Joe Joe
there he is Joe Paxton there is Pao yeah
he proposed this is the most wonderful
idea and it should have happened a
railway entirely encased in glass the
great Victorian way and it would Loop
all around Central and West London so
this is the great exhibition and it was
going to be similar to this and you
would have loved it zo with your jazz
band and so so there was going to be the
rail way and then on either side there
would be shops there would be music
there would be people’s homes there
would be three River Crossings it was
going to be a a 10mile girdle of London
can you imagine girdle of London oh
would it have had Wi-Fi
though not
initially the whole thing was going to
be 108 ft high it was going to be 72t
wide it was going to be incredible it
never happened because of cost cost
exactly that 100 ft high and 70 ft why
yeah would have been amazing but is it
going to be shops of the whole thing
like and are you going about to say what
I was going to say yeah what
were what were you going to say I was
going to say it’s you’d have to shop
very quickly if you’re on a train now
you see something you like yeah go
around the whole girdle come and then
you get
off only I’ve got my change oh it never
happened but it did Lay the groundwork
for what we now call the circle line so
that was the beginnings of it but it
used to be that every single Underground
line was run separately and that meant
that the two directions of the circle
line were owned by two separate
companies so the Metropolitan Railway
company and the district Railway company
and you had to buy your ticket from a
different office depending on which
direction you were going in and if the
ticket seller was unscrupulous he might
send you even if you only had to go a
few stops all the way around on his line
rather than just to go over to the other
side and buy a ticket going the correct
way they’ have got a few Northerners
there wouldn’t they with that one

Did you know this about the initial plan for the London Underground? #QI #iplayer

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