Underground, Overground

Name: Underground, Overground
Rating: 3.99 (785 reviews)

by Andrew Martin

First published 2012

Amazon

4.0(785)

Andrew Martin recounts the development of the London Underground from the Metropolitan Railway’s opening in 1863 to the modern Tube. He follows the engineers, promoters and passengers who made underground travel possible, including Charles Pearson’s campaigning for the first line, and explains how competing railways gradually became an essential part of London’s growth.

The story also examines the twentieth-century transformation of the network into a unified public identity. Frank Pick’s approach to design, publicity and expansion and Harry Beck’s diagrammatic map are placed alongside station architecture, rolling stock and the experience of travelling below the city. The result is a social as well as technical history of how the Underground changed London and how London continually reshaped the Underground.