RAILWAYS.

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Metropolitan Railway Commission. Maps, Plans, and Sections of Metropolitan Railways and Termini. First edition. The five-man 1846 commission had a profound impact on the development of the capital by recommending against the construction of lines and stations through the City of London and the West End. This prohibition stimulated the search for subterranean routes: the Metropolitan Railway Company, which built the world's first underground railway (Paddington-Farringdon), was created eight years later.The government appointed the commission in response to the proliferation in the early 1840s of proposals (19 in all) for lines and termini. "It was clear that this potential wholesale demolition, and the chaotic traffic conditions it would engender, could not be countenanced, even by the Victorians obsessed with keeping government out of business" (Wolmar, p. 21). In their report, which rejected 17 of the 19, the commissioners also warned against future haphazard railway construction. "Enforcement for the exclusion of concessions from the center was gradually eroded, but the rule nonetheless had a shaping effect on the configuration of London railways. Out of the 15 London stations, most were built at the periphery of the exclusion area, forming a circle around the City. The only station with a central position was Charing Cross (1864), near Trafalgar Square" (Nilsen, pp. 165-6).

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