London was the first capital city in the world to have an underground railway.
The achievement began with the Metropolitan Railway, which opened to passengers on 10 January 1863. Its first route connected Paddington and Farringdon in London, giving the rapidly growing city a way to move people beneath streets already crowded with carts, omnibuses, and railway traffic.
The original railway was built largely by the cut-and-cover method: workers dug trenches along roads, constructed the line, and then covered it over. Trains were hauled by steam locomotives and used gas-lit wooden carriages, so the earliest Underground was smoky and very different from today’s electric Tube.
A common mix-up is confusing the world’s first underground railway with the first deep-level electric tube railway. London also holds that later distinction: the City and South London Railway opened in 1890. The modern London Underground grew from several early companies and was not initially one unified system.