3-021-188 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Junction of the St. John's Wood and Metropolitan Railways at Baker-Street, [London], 1868. View giving '...a notion of the position of the cutting of the archway beneath the Marylebone-road and of the adjacent buildings, one of which is the Marylebone Workhouse...[A] difficulty arose in passing over the Regent's Canal, where the line has to rise at a gradient of one in sixty. But this was a trifling work compared to taking all the sewage under the canal at such a level that it was always within a yard of the water over it. The work was accomplished by driving iron cylinders beneath the canal; and, though sometimes within less than three feet of where the keels of the barges passed over them, there was no leakage or delay of any kind...The whole line has been built on what is called the "cut and cover" principle, and the foundations of the tunnel sides are carried down deep into the clay and then laid on concrete...All the works have been carried out by Messrs. Lucas and Aird, whose experience in underground lines most peculiarly fitted them for such a task. The engineers are Mr. John Fowler and Mr. Johnstone... This line, which is rather more than two miles in length, was opened for public traffic on Easter Monday'. From "Illustrated London News", 1868.