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Waterloo and Whitehall Railway

Waterloo and Whitehall Railway

Illustration of the iron tube intended for use on the railway.
Overview
Dates of operation	1865–1867
Technical
Track gauge	Unknown

The Waterloo and Whitehall Railway was a proposed and partly constructed 19th century Rammell pneumatic railway in central London intended to run under the River Thames just upstream from Hungerford Bridge, running from Waterloo station to the Whitehall end of Great Scotland Yard. The later Baker Street and Waterloo Railway followed a similar alignment for part of its route.

Origins[edit]

Waterloo and Whitehall Railway Act 1865
Act of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title	An Act for making a Railway from near the Waterloo Station of the London and South-Western Railway to Whitehall; and for other Purposes.
Citation	28 & 29 Vict. c. cclviii
Dates
Royal assent	5 July 1865
Other legislation
Repealed by	Statute Law (Repeals) Act 2013
Status: Repealed
Text of statute as originally enacted

Authorised by the Waterloo and Whitehall Railway Act 1865 (28 & 29 Vict. c. cclviii), its route was:

A Railway commencing in the Parish of St Martin's-in-the-Fields in the County of Middlesex in the Street or Place known as Great Scotland Yard at or near the Western End thereof, and terminating in the Parish of Lambeth and County of Surrey in a Piece of Land belonging to the London and South-western Railway Company, and in the Occupation of Edwin Benjamin Gammon, near to and opposite the Arches under the Waterloo Station of that Railway numbered respectively 249 and 250.

Waterloo and Whitehall Railway (Amendment) Act 1867
Act of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title	An Act to enlarge the Powers of the Waterloo and Whitehall Railway Company.
Citation	30 & 31 Vict. c. cxcvii
Dates
Royal assent	12 August 1876
Other legislation
Repealed by	Statute Law (Repeals) Act 2013
Status: Repealed
Text of statute as originally enacted

Waterloo and Whitehall Railway Act 1868
Act of Parliament
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Citation	31 & 32 Vict. c. clxix
Other legislation
Repealed by	Statute Law (Repeals) Act 2013
Status: Repealed

The period was extended by the Waterloo and Whitehall Railway (Amendment) Act 1867 (30 & 31 Vict. c. cxcvii) and Waterloo and Whitehall Railway Act 1868 (31 & 32 Vict. c. clxix).

Technical information[edit]

The pneumatic pressure was to have been 22 lb/sq ft (1,100 Pa; 0.010 atm) in a 12-foot (3.7 m) diameter tube, with the engine at the Waterloo end sucking and then blowing 25 seat carriages acting as pistons.^[1] Edmund Wragge was resident engineer.

The railway was intended to cross the river in a tunnel formed of four prefabricated sections of tube, each 220 feet (67 m) long, laid in a trench dredged across the river. The sections were to be joined by introducing their ends into junction chambers formed in brick piers constructed below the level of the existing riverbed. The piers were also designed to bear the weight of the sections, which were made of three-quarter-inch boiler plate, surrounded by four rings of brick work, firmly held in place by cement and flanged rings riveted onto the metal. Each section (of which at least one was completed) weighed almost 1,000 tons. Prefabrication began at the Samuda Brothers shipyard, at Poplar, five miles downstream.^[2] If completed, it would have been the first Tube railway.^[3]

Decline and abandonment[edit]

The line was hit by the 1866 financial crisis caused by the Overend, Gurney and Company bank collapse. On 2 September 1870 the Board of Trade used the Abandonment of Railways Act 1850 (13 & 14 Vict. c. 83) and the Railway Companies Act 1867 (30 & 31 Vict. c. 127) to declare the railway should be abandoned by the company.^[4]

Further developments[edit]

A further railway, the Charing Cross and Waterloo Electric Railway, was incorporated by the Charing Cross and Waterloo Electric Railway Act 1882 (45 & 46 Vict. c. cclv) but was abandoned by the Charing Cross and Waterloo Electric Railway (Abandonment) Act 1885 (48 & 49 Vict. c. lxxi) of 16 July 1885. A third company, the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway, secured the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway Act 1893 (56 & 57 Vict. c. iv). This project was also put on hold, but eventually became the Bakerloo line.^[5]

Remains[edit]

Parts of the works remained and at some stages there were tubes at the bottom of the Thames^[6] and piles protruding from the river.^[7] The trench excavated at the northern end is said now to be the wine cellar of the National Liberal Club.^[3][8] Some works appeared during construction of the Shell Centre on the South Bank.

References[edit]

51°30′21.75″N 0°7′35.88″W / 51.5060417°N 0.1266333°W / 51.5060417; -0.1266333