AH Vignette: “The Slow Tube”

(From, “Mind the Gap: A History of London Transport” by Christian Wolmar, Puffin, 2004)

The decline of the London Underground following the Second World War not inevitable. Amongst the chaos of the Blitz, thousands of Londoners had sought refuge from the Luftwaffe in the Tube’s numerous deep-level stations - whilst the system itself had endured the perils of fuel rationing and bombing raids. With the return of peace in 1946, the system was mooted for full-nationalisation – although the short-lived Cripps government was unable to pass the required legislation prior to the formation of Eden’s coalition administration in 1948. The old London Passenger Transport Board became defunct, with responsibility for the running of the lines returned to private companies, although a small Metropolitan Transport Authority held some limited control over ticketing and strategic planning.

What – then – doomed the Underground? Was it a failed attempt at investment by the Ministry which rendered the system unsalvageable - as my colleague, Jeremy Clarkson has suggested? Was it, as the Panglossian views of the time point to, a belief that the liberating freedom of motor car would render the need for mass transit irrelevant? Or was it, as the more conspiracy-minded have suggested, a deliberate effort by a generation of Transport Ministers with investments in the road-building industry to ‘run the service down’?

In truth, the matter may well be a variation on all three of these. Certainly, as the Eden government lurched from one crisis to another (devaluation, power shortages, the Malay Crisis), the mesh of private companies that collectively ran the Underground struggled. After the opening of the Central Line extension in 1947, investment came to a near-standstill, and an increasingly fractious Parliament demanded inquiry after inquiry. London – her population already in flight to the leafy suburbs and colonies – was no-longer a city that had the voice to call for constant development, in sharp contrast to the young men and women of the Social Credit movement, who loudly spoke out against ‘hand-outs’ for private companies. The ideological realignment caused by the collapse of the interbellum system had brought the Managerialists to power – and Vernon Bartlett’s appointment as Britain’s first Common Wealth Prime Minister in 1955 finally marked the end of the line for the old Railway Companies.

With the collapse (metaphorical) of the District and Metropolitan Railway Company during the famous “Sterling Run”, and the collapse (actual) of a section of the Northern Line at Highbury, Bartlett’s government finally ran out of patience. A ‘Royal Commission on Railway Services in the Metropolis’ was formed under the Chairmanship of the businessman and Conservative politician, Ernest Marples, which found a liturgy of failures with regard to the governance of the London transport network. The subsequent report, entitled “The Reshaping of Transport in London” was wide-ranging and influential – calling for the closure of the majority of lines within the Capital, and the establishment of a network of cross-city motorways to replace them. Although controversial, many of the recommendations were brought in – with the predictable results. Suburbs that had previously been within an hour’s journey of the City found themselves isolated, whilst quiet backwaters and rural idylls had their tranquillity ruined by an influx of lorries and motorcars. Established communities such as Ealing became run-down, unfashionable backwaters, replaced by the ugly and unloved ‘Marplesgrads’ – purpose-built New Towns on the periphery of the once great city. As early as the following November, the incoming Conservative government of Quintin Hogg had become vociferous critics of the ‘Great Undermining’ – pledging a total re-think of the programme. The road building programme was halted, whilst the Local Government Act of 1961 returned extensive powers over transport to the London County Council, which subsequently restored the strategic functions of the Metropolitan Transport Authority.

The damage – however – was done. A study by Sir Paul Chambers found endemic structural problems on the network, with subsidence threatening thousands of properties across central London. A number of sections of the most severally depreciated lines were filled with concrete as a precautionary measure, whilst many of the former stations had either been demolished or sold for private development. In 1962, the Transport Minister – Reginald Maudling – reported the network was ‘unsalvageable’, instead endorsing proposals for an investment in new surface lines, trams, and the first of the five ‘Crosslines’. With the opening of the Croydon Airport Rail Link in 1967 (which incorporated a small section of the old Northern Line on the approach into London Bridge) – elements of the old network finally returned to the general railway network, but the future of intensive transport within the city belonged – clearly – to above-ground services.

Today, the old Underground exists as a curiosity, and a sad reminder of the economic vandalism of the immediate post-war period. London was the first city in the world to develop an underground rail system, and with the exception of the Bakerloo Line Shuttle (ironically enough – the first of the network to be built). The general network is now largely forgotten by the general public, aside - perhaps - for those who know the famous song by Flanders and Swann;