AHC: More Underground Railways in the UK?

I'd guess that Birmingham, Manchester, and Liverpool at least could have built subways in the late nineteenth our early twentieth century.

Liverpool at least did - it's underground system isn't large at about half a dozen stations but it exists and even runs under the Mersey to Birkenhead.
 

Devvy

Donor
Oooooh, a new trains thread ;)

I think what pushed London into the tube was the prohibition on above ground railways through central London area; only 1 railway (the now Thameslink route) managed to work through this. London is widespread enough that people needed onwards transit from their terminal. It widely used the tactic of tunnelling in the centre, and then taking over suburban main line routes as their outer reaches.

Other areas I think could manage this:

- Liverpool; essentially as Merseyrail ended up, although the Wirral Lines could head further east and take over some of the Outer Rail Loop.
- Manchester; north/south through the centre to connect the separate Victoria and Piccadilly stations and the city centre, taking over the suburban routes to the north and south of the city.
- Leeds/Bradford; again a short city centre tunnel, and take over some of the suburban routes.

All are "industrial" cities; large amounts of people likely to use public transport, cities of a decent size and have plenty of suburban rail to use.
 
Tunnelling methods preclude a Birmingham underground until the 1950's, by which time UK Government was trying to stop the Second City growing and encouraging investment out of it.
Yeah, I came across a couple of mentions of these policies with regards to Birmingham and looking back it does appear to have been absolutely demented. I can only imagine what sort of damage it must have done to the city.
 
FYI, excluding London Overground, only 45% of the network is actually underground.

Pretty much how most subway systems work--tunnels beneath the downtown, then open cut or elevated once you head out of the city center. The exceptions are the rubber-tired metros in cities like Montreal, which can't handle heavy snow or rain.

My own public-transit ATL is widespread adoption of a suspended-monorail system like the Wuppertal Schwebebahn, perhaps replacing the conventional elevateds like Chicago's. Or for a post-1900 POD, Los Angeles actually building a large-scale Alweg monorail system.
 
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