Some eerie photographs and amazing 3D stereo cards offer a glimpse of the London Underground in years past.
Update: scroll down for the 3D photos.
In honour of the 150th birthday of the tube, we’ve dug out these eerie pictures of Euston underground station, taken in 1908 – a year after the station was opened by the City and South London Railway. The tube in these pics is familiar in many ways, but bizarrely unfamiliar in others, not least in the signs, the rolling stock – and the prices. Enjoy!
Update – 3D photos: our marketing team have unearthed these amazing stereoscopic photos of early work building the London Underground’s tunnels. You can try to view them in 3D using the same method as for those old Magic Eye pictures.
We have an ever-increasing collection of 1000s of historic railway photos to browse on our main website.
I think that first picture is NOT of Euston – the loco visible in the picture is a City & South London Railway one – see http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a7/Ltmd-c%26slr-number13-01.jpg/220px-Ltmd-c%26slr-number13-01.jpg and the C&SLR never got to Euston!
I’m sorry to disagree with your sir. The line reached Euston in 1907, opening on 12th May. This area is now the SB Northen Line (City Branch) platform. It’s wider than normal because of its orignal use as the terminal island platform.
Picture quality is really good considering how old it is.
Compare Photo 4 and Photo 5. Photo 5 shows the NB CCE&H Rly platform. It has 4-rail traction and no pit under the track. The C&SLR (Photo 4) has a 3-rail traction system (the third rail is offset) and they have a train inspection pit – it’s not a suicide pit. They stabled trains there overnight. Eventually all tube tunnel stations had suicide pits provided. They first appeared on the Modern extension in the mid-1920s.
Is it just me, or were the platforms very much lower (closer to trackbed level) than they are today?