who took the initiative to plan the first underground railway in kolkata
Kolkata Metro The then Chief Minister of West Bengal, Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy, first conceived the idea of building an Underground Railway for Kolkata in early 1950s. A survey was done by a team of French experts, but nothing concrete came of this. Efforts to solve the problem by augmenting the existing fleet of public transport vehicles hardly helped, since roads accounted for only 4.2% of the surface area in Kolkata, compared with 25% in Delhi and even 30% in other cities. With the goal of finding alternative solutions to alleviate the suffering of commuters, the Metropolitan Transport Project (Railways) (MTP) was set up in 1969.[5] The MTP (Rlys), with help of Soviet specialists (Lenmetroproekt) and East German engineers, prepared a master plan to provide five rapid-transit (metro) lines for the city of Kolkata, totalling a route length of 97.5Â km in 1971.[6] However, only three were selected for construction. These were:
History of the London Underground In the first half of the 19th century, London had grown greatly and the development of a commuting population arriving by train each day led to traffic congestion with carts, cabs and omnibuses filling the roads.[3] By 1850 there were seven railway termini located around the urban centre of London[4] and the concept of an underground railway linking the City of London with these stations was first proposed in the 1830s. Charles Pearson, Solicitor to the City of London, was a leading promoter of several schemes,[5] and he contributed to the creation of the City Terminus Company to build such a railway from Farringdon to King's Cross in 1852 . Although the plan was supported by the City of London, the railway companies were not interested and the company struggled to proceed.[6] In 1854 the Metropolitan Railway (also known as the Met) was granted permission to build an underground line at an estimated cost of £1 million. [7] [8] With the Crimean War under way, the Met found it hard to raise the capital,[6] and construction did not start until March 1860.[9] The railway was mostly built using the "cut-and-cover" method from Paddington to King's Cross; east of King's Cross it was built by tunnelling and then followed the culverted River Fleet in an open cutting to the new meat market at Smithfield.[10][11] The 3.75-mile (6 km) railway opened to the public on 10 January 1863, using steam locomotives hauling wooden carriages.[12] It was hailed as a success, carrying 38,000 passengers on the opening day, borrowing trains from other railways to supplement the service.[13] In the first twelve months 9.5 million passengers were carried[11] and in the second twelve months this increased to 12 million.[14]