WEBVTT - TechStuff Episode 700: How Subways Work 0:00:04.200 --> 0:00:12.840 Get in Touch with Technology with tex Stuff from Hey there, 0:00:13.000 --> 0:00:18.319 and welcome to episode seven hundred of Tech Stuff. I'm 0:00:18.400 --> 0:00:25.919 Jonathan Strickland. Joining me in the studio is Ben bo. Hey, Jonathan, 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:28.520 I just want to let you know that I meant 0:00:28.680 --> 0:00:32.160 to rent that tux that I'm always talking about renting 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:38.000 for this show. This is huge, seven hundred episodes. Yeah, 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:41.239 I do appreciate the fact that you have filled the 0:00:41.520 --> 0:00:47.960 entire audio podcast studio room with confetti at waste height. Yeah, 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:50.440 was it confetti or money that you wanted? I didn't 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:53.280 read the end of the email. You know, it looks 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:57.680 like you actually got this confetti from the Department of Treasury, 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:00.520 because it does look like you've got shredded I assume 0:01:00.600 --> 0:01:03.480 you got it from there because you can get shredded 0:01:03.480 --> 0:01:06.920 money from them. Yeah. I'm gonna hope that that's in 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:09.680 fact where this is from. But it it's very festive. 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:12.160 I appreciate it. Hey, thank you. You know, because we 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:15.120 live in an urban environment, we have all kinds of 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:17.240 cool stuff in our city, Like we do have a 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:19.720 federal ment here, right, Yeah, yeah, we have a lot 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:22.080 of cool things in Atlanta. In fact, we could do 0:01:22.080 --> 0:01:24.840 a full episode just on the neat stuff in Atlanta, 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:26.920 And now that I'm saying that, I'm kind of regretting 0:01:26.959 --> 0:01:30.520 that I didn't think about it beforehand. But the thing 0:01:30.560 --> 0:01:33.840 we decided to go with it was several people have 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:36.920 requested over the years of tech stuff that we cover 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:43.400 how subways work. Uh not the sandwich shop, not subway. 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:46.280 Thank you for correcting me before we went on air. Yeah, 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:49.400 there was an incident beforehand, but we won't speak of it, 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:52.680 and instead we're going to talk about subway systems like 0:01:52.760 --> 0:01:59.280 subway trains because it's a fascinating topic. The technology is 0:01:59.840 --> 0:02:03.000 very married from really super simple stuff in the early 0:02:03.040 --> 0:02:06.000 early days of subways too pretty sophisticated systems to today 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:12.000 and today. Um. Now, to understand subways, we have to 0:02:12.080 --> 0:02:15.640 understand what was the need for a subway. What is 0:02:16.040 --> 0:02:20.400 the story of how subways became a necessity? And it 0:02:20.480 --> 0:02:25.040 all starts back in the mid nineteenth century when we 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:30.880 start seeing this incredible move people moving from pastoral areas 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:37.800 to urban areas to cities as the opportunities for jobs 0:02:37.840 --> 0:02:41.680 and to make money increased in cities and decreased out 0:02:41.840 --> 0:02:46.880 in farmland areas. So industrial revolution is a big part 0:02:46.919 --> 0:02:49.200 of this, right yeah, absolutely. And one of the one 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:52.840 of the strange things is that for a lot of 0:02:52.919 --> 0:02:56.480 the people moving into these urban areas and for the 0:02:56.520 --> 0:02:59.520 people who were, you know, the functioning government of these 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:03.519 urban area is nobody was quite sure how to city. Really, 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:09.120 these were built on these medieval medieval if I'm pronouncing correctly, 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:13.079 I butchered at both times. But they're they're built on 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:18.639 these much older plans, narrow lanes, you know, the ditch 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:22.040 going through the center of the road, and they were 0:03:22.080 --> 0:03:27.720 not equipped to handle all these pedestrians, let alone the carts. 0:03:28.120 --> 0:03:31.280 You you and I were calling this the bs era 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:35.200 for before subways, but we we have to paint a 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:38.480 picture for this. And and you have some um specific 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:43.240 statistics too about uh, the just the sheer growth. Right. 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:46.360 So imagine, if you will. You've got this urban environment 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:48.960 that that Ben was describing. You've got these narrow roads, 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:51.920 You've got the ditch that's in the middle. You've got 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:57.400 traffic that's pedestrian and horse traffic, cart traffic, wagons, that 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:00.520 kind of stuff all going in these cities. We're gonna 0:04:00.560 --> 0:04:04.040 focus largely on London here because London, as it turns out, 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:07.920 is the first city to incorporate a subterranean training system. 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:13.040 Uh so London in the in eight hundred, London was 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:17.120 already the world's largest city at that time, and it 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:21.520 had one million people fifty years later, So just five 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:24.520 decades later it went from one million to two point 0:04:24.800 --> 0:04:28.960 five million people. That's explosive growth in a relatively short 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:32.400 amount of time. Yeah, it's an extra London and a half. Yeah, 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:37.760 and imagine if you will what this does with population density, 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:41.760 with traffic. I mean, you had, uh issues with housing. 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:44.640 It was it was hard to get good housing in London. 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:48.080 Not not that that's you know, that's totally different. Now 0:04:49.200 --> 0:04:52.039 if you are incredibly wealthy, it's not hard, I guess, 0:04:52.120 --> 0:04:54.159 to get good housing in London, but otherwise it can 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:56.800 be a bit of a challenge. So one of the 0:04:56.800 --> 0:05:00.920 things that governments wanted to do was in aspire people 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:04.800 to still live further outside of the city where they 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:09.080 could have a much better living condition and then be 0:05:09.279 --> 0:05:11.599 able to come into the city to work and then 0:05:11.680 --> 0:05:14.719 leave the city to go back home to commute. Right 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:17.599 So that way they wouldn't be forced to live in 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:21.880 tiny conditions or in slums. Yeah, exactly, they wanted to 0:05:22.520 --> 0:05:24.039 you know, that's no way for a person to live. 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:26.520 And now we understand that all the jobs are here, 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:28.080 so we don't want to deny them the access to 0:05:28.120 --> 0:05:31.320 the jobs. And we need people to do yeah, but 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:35.680 we don't need them to be living in human conditions. Right. 0:05:35.720 --> 0:05:38.760 And also that's that's dangerous for the city overall, when 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:42.080 you go to crime, when you go to sanitation. Uh. 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:45.120 But it's it's no secret and I don't think this 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:48.000 is an offensive thing to say, nor spoiler. It's no 0:05:48.120 --> 0:05:51.799 secret that parts of London were pretty rough. So these 0:05:51.839 --> 0:05:56.400 people who had, you know, had jobs, not necessarily um, 0:05:56.800 --> 0:06:01.440 very high dollar jobs. Right. The equivalent middle class would 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:05.920 be would ride steam railways, right, coal power rail Yeah, 0:06:06.000 --> 0:06:10.360 so the coal was there to generate the heat that 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:13.120 would convert water to steam. The steam would actually power 0:06:13.680 --> 0:06:16.880 the train, but you're using coal as the main fuel 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:19.440 to to start the steam in the first place. It's 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:21.880 not like steam just happens on its own. You gotta 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:25.040 heat it up first, heat water up first. So there 0:06:25.080 --> 0:06:30.080 were railways that existed in England and they had stations 0:06:30.160 --> 0:06:35.640 that terminated on the outskirts what were then the outskirts 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:41.160 of London. But city city officials had passed laws that 0:06:41.160 --> 0:06:44.400 that restricted those railways from going any further into the 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:47.719 city because there just wasn't room. There wasn't room for 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:50.760 a train to come in further into London than on 0:06:50.800 --> 0:06:54.600 the outskirts. So your big stations at the time were Paddington, 0:06:56.400 --> 0:06:59.280 it was a Houston was another one, and King's Cross. 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:02.680 Those were the three big ones. So you could have 0:07:02.720 --> 0:07:06.359 people ride in to those points from further out in 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:10.200 the countryside, but once they got there, they still had 0:07:10.240 --> 0:07:13.120 to make their way further into London to work wherever 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:17.040 they were working, which meant that traffic was still nightmarish. Yeah, 0:07:17.040 --> 0:07:20.600 and this is pedestrian traffic, so much of it, which 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:27.160 to me is even more undesirable than being stuck in 0:07:27.240 --> 0:07:30.640 a car uh or on a horse I guess I've 0:07:30.640 --> 0:07:34.120 never been in a horse jam, but but just being 0:07:34.240 --> 0:07:38.320 in this constant crowd because more than seven hundred thousand 0:07:38.440 --> 0:07:41.920 people every day rode the train to the edge of 0:07:41.960 --> 0:07:45.680 the city and then somehow got to work right. Yeah, 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:49.560 which makes my own commuting stories, like the war stories 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:52.160 I used to tell, seem pretty fail in comparison. You 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:54.000 have some pretty good wines, though, I do. I mean 0:07:54.040 --> 0:07:56.520 I used to have to. I had a commute that 0:07:56.600 --> 0:07:58.680 was three hours a day for a while, that was 0:07:58.760 --> 0:08:02.080 you know, total commute from but the commute in and 0:08:02.120 --> 0:08:04.480 the commune it was three hours total. That was it's 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:06.960 a significant chunk of your day just spent getting to 0:08:07.120 --> 0:08:11.080 and from your your your job. But there were other 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:14.800 forms of mass trendsit before the subway and beyond the 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:18.720 train systems. There were omnibuses. Now, the original omnibusses were 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:23.600 not motor vehicles. They were horse drawn wagons essentially. Some 0:08:23.640 --> 0:08:25.880 of them, like you could some of them were like 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:28.280 double decker type things like the old double decker buses, 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:31.360 except a cart drawn by horse. If you ever see 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:34.079 any of the old footage, like there are old films 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:37.040 that show some of the traffic in cities like London 0:08:37.120 --> 0:08:39.240 that when when there's still were quite a few horses, 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:41.719 Like there were some cars by that time, but there 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:44.480 were still a lot of horse traffic. To see the 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:47.400 omnibusses being pulled, it looks terrifying to me, like these 0:08:47.400 --> 0:08:49.720 things looked like they would flip over. I get sneezed wrong, 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:53.400 and people are just packed in them like they're they're 0:08:53.400 --> 0:08:56.719 sitting shoulder to shoulder, and I'm just thinking, boy, the 0:08:56.840 --> 0:08:59.800 poor horses too. I mean, it's gotta be tough. And 0:09:00.360 --> 0:09:03.480 there were those also created even more traffic. I mean, 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:05.679 it's not like it's not like that solved a lot 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:08.760 of problems. Plus where do you put them when you're 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:11.160 not using them? You've gotta have a place to park 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:14.040 these things right, right, they're not they're not small. You 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:17.839 can't really parallel park in omnibus and it's got to 0:09:17.880 --> 0:09:21.000 be a pain even with just a single horse, especially 0:09:21.040 --> 0:09:24.000 if you have crime. No cars of course came in 0:09:24.080 --> 0:09:28.200 everybody who has to pay the various uh traffic usage 0:09:28.480 --> 0:09:33.520 taxes in London currently uh probably probably as a couple 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:36.640 of regrets about their cars. Cars. Cars, Honestly, even though 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:39.280 they came after subways and of course after horses, they 0:09:39.320 --> 0:09:43.720 had their own set of similar problems. Most importantly, where 0:09:43.720 --> 0:09:47.079 do I put it? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, if you are 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:49.360 if you are living in a city that's built on 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:53.360 a medieval city plan, at least parts of the city 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:56.880 are that way, there probably aren't that many places where 0:09:56.880 --> 0:09:59.439 you could put a car, right, you know, And then 0:09:59.600 --> 0:10:02.079 it's it's kind of like New York City to there 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:04.480 there are parking areas in New York City. They're like 0:10:04.520 --> 0:10:06.640 parking garages and parking decks and that sort of thing. 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:09.280 But street parking is one of those things that people 0:10:09.280 --> 0:10:12.320 just guard jealously. Oh yeah, the whole story about you 0:10:12.360 --> 0:10:15.200 circle a block sixty times waiting for a spot to 0:10:15.240 --> 0:10:16.800 open up so that way you don't have to walk 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:21.520 an extra fift or whatever. And there there's still people 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:26.320 who who just uh, stay in a parking space and 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:29.760 wait until the cleaners come, the street cleaners, and just 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:32.319 move it for the street cleaners and then park back 0:10:32.800 --> 0:10:35.520 because it's that valuable. It's it's crazy and one of 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:39.120 one of the things when these cars didn't um really 0:10:39.360 --> 0:10:42.760 solve them many problems, Like the railways can only do 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:45.840 so much. The horses weren't helping, although I'm sure they 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:49.160 you know, we're doing their best. It's because all of 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:52.679 these forms of transit had one thing in common. They 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:55.680 were all competing for the same space. They wanted to 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:58.959 go above ground, right there was no no other means 0:10:59.120 --> 0:11:03.000 of getting around. They didn't have elevated pathways, so you 0:11:03.040 --> 0:11:07.320 couldn't go above the traffic, so that really limited what 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:09.600 you could do. You know, any solution you had just 0:11:09.679 --> 0:11:13.280 been adding more fuel to the fire right. Uh, and 0:11:13.320 --> 0:11:15.800 so here's some other challenges. Let's say that you've got 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:18.520 a great design for your city. Let's say that you 0:11:18.520 --> 0:11:20.800 you have planned this out from the beginning. There's certain 0:11:20.840 --> 0:11:26.040 cities that had the benefit of early civil engineering planning 0:11:26.200 --> 0:11:28.920 from the start, Like Salt Lake City is a great example. 0:11:30.000 --> 0:11:33.240 It's laid out in a grid that's very easy to understand. 0:11:33.280 --> 0:11:35.840 It's very easy for you to navigate. Um. There are 0:11:35.880 --> 0:11:37.800 other cities that are laid out in a way that 0:11:38.720 --> 0:11:43.360 defies logic. Atlanta, Georgia, just throwing it out there, we 0:11:43.440 --> 0:11:47.800 don't really have blocks in Atlanta, Georgia. We've got blobs, 0:11:49.040 --> 0:11:51.440 you know, surrounded by one way streets that only direct 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:54.560 you into some sort of nether region where Cathulu rains 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:57.199 or something. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have. 0:11:58.080 --> 0:12:02.040 I've been there as well. Right, So in this case, 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:04.760 you know, how do you if it's been planned out 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:09.959 really well, you may not be able to make any alterations, 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:11.640 Like you might be able to make the streets wider 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:14.040 to allow for a street car, for example, And even 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:16.240 if you did have a street car, that's still on 0:12:16.280 --> 0:12:18.920 the surface, it's still competing for that same space here 0:12:18.920 --> 0:12:22.000 in Atlanta. We can tell you we just had not 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:25.480 not too long ago, a street car prototype program rolled out, 0:12:25.800 --> 0:12:30.120 literally rolled out, and we've already had multiple incidents of 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:34.240 accidents right rolled out. I'm sorry, no, no, no, no, 0:12:35.440 --> 0:12:40.760 it's my show on car stuff. Right. The the the 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:43.880 street car is kind of a proof of concept and 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:47.679 we're and what you're saying is absolutely true. We're seeing, uh, 0:12:48.200 --> 0:12:53.000 a spate of accidents or incidents maybe and luckily there 0:12:53.000 --> 0:12:56.120 haven't been any serious injuries or anything. But it's because 0:12:56.360 --> 0:13:00.640 an entire city of drivers, uh that's normal only in 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:02.400 that part of town, when they're in a hurry to 0:13:02.559 --> 0:13:06.400 ur from somewhere, is trying to navigate around this thing 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:09.000 that moves at its own pace, right, and they're not 0:13:09.040 --> 0:13:12.240 familiar with it, and uh, you know, it's it's one 0:13:12.240 --> 0:13:14.120 of those things. It's growing pains. It's one of those things. 0:13:15.320 --> 0:13:17.839 And there there are other arguments about the street car 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:20.360 we won't go into because they're very hyperlocal and if 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:22.160 you're not in Atlanta, you're not gonna care. Yeah, it's 0:13:22.160 --> 0:13:24.640 gonna be weird. But there there's another solution to right, 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:27.920 not just the street Yeah, there's also the elevated solution 0:13:27.920 --> 0:13:30.800 the elevated trains like the L in Chicago. Um, have 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:33.680 you ever written the L? I have? I have? I 0:13:33.760 --> 0:13:37.720 love the L. I thought it was amazing. So just 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:43.680 quick sidebars. So my girlfriend took me to Chicago for 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:46.760 my birthday and I'm a big old chief skate and 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:48.640 I didn't want to. Yeah, I don't want to. I 0:13:48.679 --> 0:13:50.720 don't want to do anything. So I just told crab 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:53.040 apple until you know. We got on the plane and 0:13:53.120 --> 0:13:56.680 hit me, we're really going. And it was so exciting 0:13:56.720 --> 0:13:59.440 to just get on this train because the views are great. 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:04.040 You can go pretty much anywhere. Uh And and as 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:07.520 a transit rider in Atlanta, that's not the case right 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:10.800 at the Atlanta Transit's very very limited. Now. The system 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:12.920 we have in Atlanta has a series of trains that 0:14:13.160 --> 0:14:15.480 some some sections of the track are above ground, some 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:17.880 are below ground. Right, Yeah, so ours is kind of 0:14:17.920 --> 0:14:21.960 a hybrid surface and subway system and the and the 0:14:22.000 --> 0:14:25.200 But the elevated thing, as as great as it can be, 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:27.760 it's not gonna work for every city. Right You you 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:31.320 still have to build supports for that elevated system. Right, 0:14:31.360 --> 0:14:34.240 you have to be able to secure the bridge that 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:37.040 the tracks are onto something whether it's pylons or two 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:41.880 buildings or whatever, and that solution works in some situations 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:45.880 but not in others. So you've pretty much exhausted all 0:14:45.960 --> 0:14:49.920 your other opportunities. The only thing left to you is 0:14:49.960 --> 0:14:53.920 to go down below street level so that you're no 0:14:53.960 --> 0:14:58.000 longer competing for that landscape and you can just get 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:02.480 people to and from locations underground. Thus they're not impacting 0:15:02.520 --> 0:15:05.760 traffic at all. You can actually help alleviate traffic by 0:15:05.880 --> 0:15:08.280 encouraging a lot of people to go underground as opposed 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:13.800 to cluttering up the streets. So sounds well, it sounds 0:15:13.840 --> 0:15:16.640 like it's a logical solution, but then it also sounds 0:15:16.640 --> 0:15:20.160 like it's an incredibly difficult one to do. Oh yeah, 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:23.920 for numerous reasons. I mean the cost alone, not just 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:28.520 not just the cost of the actual materials and labor 0:15:28.640 --> 0:15:30.880 to create this, but the cost to the city from 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:35.520 lost business activity. There's actually also human cost. I mean, 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:39.960 there are there are incidents where during the the excavation 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:43.600 of various tunnels, Uh do there might be an accident? 0:15:43.800 --> 0:15:47.640 You know? I think for the New York City subway system, 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:51.480 there were several incidents of people who lost their lives 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:54.600 and tragic accidents. It's one of those deals where this 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:58.520 is a giant undertaking, it is filled with risk, particularly 0:15:58.560 --> 0:16:01.160 whenever you are digging new or a body of water. 0:16:01.360 --> 0:16:04.160 I mean, obviously in London it would have been the 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:08.160 Thames River as well as the Fleet River. Um, those 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:11.680 were both big concerns. In fact, there's an interesting thing 0:16:11.680 --> 0:16:13.360 about the Fleet River. I'll talk about that when we 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:16.560 get a little further in where they had a clever 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:22.280 way of getting around that spoilers. Yet I think people 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:25.880 will enjoy that when du The cool thing though, is that, 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:31.440 to paraphrase this quote I'm stealing from somebody. Uh, necessity 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:38.360 is the mother of subways. So now we're going to 0:16:38.400 --> 0:16:44.920 turn our focus specifically on London. Londinium as a as 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:47.080 as the character from the I T. Crowd would call 0:16:47.120 --> 0:16:49.640 it again, the largest city in the world in the 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:53.480 mid nineteenth century, and they had these restrictions. They couldn't 0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:55.920 allow the railroads to go any further into the city, 0:16:56.600 --> 0:16:59.120 and they had to figure out how were they going 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:03.120 to alleviate this massive amount of traffic and this influx 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:09.600 of people that we're living in increasingly poor conditions. Uh 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:12.560 So this was when I say people by the way, 0:17:12.680 --> 0:17:14.679 I should point out that I'm really talking about the 0:17:14.680 --> 0:17:22.440 middle class, and and the stories that you'll hear are 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:25.760 grim in many ways because people in the lower classes 0:17:25.840 --> 0:17:31.000 were really not cared for or thought about or taking 0:17:31.080 --> 0:17:36.040 care of. They were essentially the victims of progress in 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:41.640 this case, which is a tragic and common tale. Right 0:17:41.720 --> 0:17:44.359 whenever you get to this thing where we're making improvements 0:17:44.400 --> 0:17:47.359 to the city, it benefits a certain part of the population, 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:50.440 and other parts of the population are essentially forced out, 0:17:51.200 --> 0:17:53.720 and that's a tragic part. It is, however, something that 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:57.320 I wanted to acknowledge because I think those people obviously 0:17:57.520 --> 0:18:00.639 should not be forgotten or a gloss over. Now, to 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:03.920 be fair, a lot of them were also the criminal 0:18:03.920 --> 0:18:08.040 element of London. Well sure, yeah, you know that's there 0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:11.919 are a thousand ways to analyze that, but it is 0:18:11.960 --> 0:18:14.560 a fact, and it could be you could argue, and 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:17.720 I think convincingly argue that they were largely the criminal 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:20.800 element because their conditions meant that they could not get 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:24.679 work in a legal sense, so they were kind of 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:26.600 their hand was forced. You know, you still have to 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:28.800 make a living somehow, you have to. You have to survive. 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:32.400 So we could go down on a long rabbit hole 0:18:32.840 --> 0:18:36.560 a Dickensie and rabbit hole and talk about this, but 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:39.560 we'll we'll just leave it at that. So you get 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:43.400 a guy named Charles Pearson, our hero of the story. Yes, 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:47.840 he's a London solicitor that means lawyer to you and me. Uh, 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:51.040 And he argued that London should allow essentially located train 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:53.520 station to allow people to commute into the city without 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:55.960 clogging it up. So he was His first idea was, 0:18:56.359 --> 0:19:00.480 let's extend the railways that already terminate at the a 0:19:00.520 --> 0:19:04.040 perimeter of London then perimeter of London and allow them 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:05.840 to come further end. And the city said, no, we 0:19:05.880 --> 0:19:08.440 can't do that. There's just not space. It's not feasible. 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:11.600 Stop asking. We can't even a horse in this thing, 0:19:11.800 --> 0:19:14.520 right right you you're barking up the wrong tree. So 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:18.320 that's when he said, well, what if instead of that 0:19:18.960 --> 0:19:23.479 we end up looking at a subterranean train system. And 0:19:23.520 --> 0:19:26.600 he goes around and talks to some rich friends of his, 0:19:27.440 --> 0:19:31.399 and his rich friends ce Pearson as someone who has 0:19:31.840 --> 0:19:39.120 a pretty radical but potentially lucrative idea, because seven thousand 0:19:39.240 --> 0:19:43.399 people community every day, if you can charge those people 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:47.560 even a small amount to take a subterranean train station 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:51.040 system so they can get to their jobs. You have 0:19:51.520 --> 0:19:54.560 revenue just pouring in, so the investors say, you know, 0:19:54.680 --> 0:19:56.520 this risk is worth it. We're going to put our 0:19:56.560 --> 0:19:59.240 money together. So here's one thing that I thought was 0:19:59.280 --> 0:20:01.880 really cool that I did not realize before we started 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:07.399 researching that the underground the tube in London started out 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:13.880 as a private enterprise. It was not a government funded thing. 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:17.439 And especially when you think of England, we think of 0:20:17.480 --> 0:20:22.840 a lot of government funded programs, much more socialist style economy. Um, 0:20:22.920 --> 0:20:25.720 it's not pure socialism, obviously, they're only their elements that 0:20:25.720 --> 0:20:28.280 are very socialist. And you would think, oh, well, the 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:30.199 subway system must have been one of us. No, it 0:20:30.320 --> 0:20:33.600 was a private enterprise, and in fact it would become 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:39.160 a competitive private enterprise. So uh, the decision to go 0:20:39.200 --> 0:20:44.080 ahead was made, and so how would they move forward? Well, 0:20:44.359 --> 0:20:47.760 they started looking at what the various techniques would be 0:20:47.800 --> 0:20:50.880 to actually create this underground system. Because all right, they've 0:20:50.880 --> 0:20:54.239 decided they're gonna build these tunnels. They clearly didn't have 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:57.400 the magic tunneling machine like. It wasn't like the League 0:20:57.400 --> 0:21:00.800 of Extraordinary Gentleman where some jewels verned hie device comes 0:21:00.880 --> 0:21:03.960 up with a nose cone as threads on it, and 0:21:04.000 --> 0:21:06.639 it just drills down and lays down track behind it. 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:09.760 That's not how it worked. So let's talk about the 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:13.639 technique they use to build a tunnel. Okay, well all right, yeah, 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:16.640 let's do it. This is crazy. Put your put your 0:21:16.680 --> 0:21:20.480 mind back in the in the body in the context 0:21:20.520 --> 0:21:24.760 of someone in eighteen sixty and and picture you're hanging 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:27.080 out with the rest of your mover and shaker friends. 0:21:27.080 --> 0:21:30.560 You know, some aristocrats there and they're talking about putting 0:21:30.560 --> 0:21:34.480 people in the ground in a moving vehicle. This is bizarre. 0:21:34.960 --> 0:21:40.000 So they started out in they started out kind of 0:21:40.280 --> 0:21:44.760 creating a new level of surface. Um, because they dug 0:21:44.880 --> 0:21:47.240 a big trench and you know, like maybe twenty ft 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:50.720 across in an existing road. Then they would lay two 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:53.480 tracks side by side and they would cover that over 0:21:53.520 --> 0:21:56.200 with brick. So it's kind of like they were raising 0:21:56.320 --> 0:22:00.119 the surface a little bit. And they only put This 0:22:00.240 --> 0:22:03.639 wasn't perfect. They called it cut and cover. Um it was. 0:22:03.840 --> 0:22:06.080 It was a massive paint. We're a family show, so 0:22:06.119 --> 0:22:08.200 it's a massive paint. And the key star for all 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:11.879 this construction. Um, Like, were you ever around during the 0:22:11.880 --> 0:22:14.760 big dig days? Did you ever go to Boston? Oh, 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:18.640 I I went to Boston when they were not during 0:22:18.640 --> 0:22:20.399 the Big dig it was after that, but it was 0:22:20.520 --> 0:22:25.200 I was in Boston when there were still some fallout 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:29.800 from Big dig It. It's crazy to stop a city 0:22:29.840 --> 0:22:34.440 like that. And uh so, um there there's some interesting 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:39.000 statistics here about just how much of a problem all 0:22:39.040 --> 0:22:41.399 of this construction. Sorry, because they didn't start with just 0:22:41.480 --> 0:22:44.880 like one tunnel. They did a network of them. Uh 0:22:44.920 --> 0:22:47.480 and they and they said, what we're going to do 0:22:47.680 --> 0:22:51.200 is build something that connects these rail stations like king Cross, 0:22:51.560 --> 0:22:56.280 King's Cross excuse me, to a more central location called Farrington. Yes, 0:22:56.280 --> 0:23:01.960 Barrington was the first underground station to station on the 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:06.600 London Underground and so it connected to these other various 0:23:06.880 --> 0:23:09.800 rail stations. So this was like the centralized point and 0:23:09.880 --> 0:23:11.959 people would have to pay a ticket. They first they 0:23:11.960 --> 0:23:13.920 had to pay a ticket to ride whatever rail line 0:23:13.960 --> 0:23:16.560 they were on. They had to pay an extra ticket 0:23:16.640 --> 0:23:19.040 to get on the underground to get into London. But 0:23:19.080 --> 0:23:21.160 if that's your your options so that you can get 0:23:21.200 --> 0:23:25.000 to work without spending six hours behind the horses butt, 0:23:25.400 --> 0:23:28.320 you're gonna you're gonna pay that money if you can. 0:23:29.600 --> 0:23:32.160 But yeah, I mean, because come on, time is money. 0:23:32.560 --> 0:23:36.080 So this cut and cover method meant that whenever they 0:23:36.080 --> 0:23:40.840 were installing the rail lines, that entire street was off limits. 0:23:40.880 --> 0:23:44.320 You could not go down that street as at least 0:23:44.320 --> 0:23:46.120 not in a in any kind of vehicle. You might 0:23:46.119 --> 0:23:48.440 be able to walk along the very sides of it, 0:23:48.960 --> 0:23:52.440 but it meant that it was incredibly disruptive to businesses 0:23:52.440 --> 0:23:55.719