Transport in London
SIR, Writing of transport in London in " the glittering days of King Edward VII ". in Marginal Continent, Mr. Harold Nicolson remarks: " We did not foresee the time when the electric train would ... plunge below the Thames." I wonder why. The first electric tube train plunged under the Thames in Victorian days (1890) and was driven by King Edward VII, when Prince of Wales. The second plunge by an electric train also took place in Victorian days—on the Waterloo and City Railway in 1898, while the Bakerloo tube was opened below the river in 1906. The East London Railway's tunnel, of an earlier vintage, was also electrically operated—so far as Metropolitan trains were concerned—at this time. Thus of the five present-day railway tunnels under the river four were electrically worked during the Edwardian era and only one
remained to be " foreseen."—Yours, 3. P. BARDSLLY. Overseas Club, St. James's, S.W.I.
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