The London Underground

One of the fascinating things that I found in London is Railway transport. This interest might sound mundane for Londoners or any European citizen as the railway is a popular medium of transportation in most EU cities. UAE a country that has only 47 years founded inaugurated its first metro system, the Dubai Metro, in 2009. I lived in UAE for ten years, and during all my residence there I did take the metro only three times, mainly for tourism purposes. In 2007, the year I arrived in Dubai, the metro system was under construction. Having a car was imperative due to limited options for transport and weather conditions. In Perú my home country, the Lima Metro system started its operations in 2011. I was not there by then, and the times I visited Lima I used a couple of times this transport.
In this two weeks in London, I have taken trains and buses more times than in the last five years. The effectiveness of the railway and buses system, so complex but at the same time easy to use, is granted to a clear understanding of an existing need and visionary planning of the transport communication within the city.

The first railway London line was opened in 1863, the Metropolitan Railway, using steam locomotive and connecting six intermediate stations between Paddington and Farringdon. Its first year of operations the line carried 9.5 million passengers.

Today the London Underground – the Tube -  serves more than one billion passengers per year, and connects 270 stations in all London. The link between the development of London as a world city and the existence of the Underground is undeniable.