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The London Necropolis Railway was a railway line opened in November 1854 by the London Necropolis Company (LNC), to carry cadavers and mourners between London and the LNC's newly opened Brookwood Cemetery in Brookwood, Surrey. At the time the largest cemetery in the world, Brookwood Cemetery was designed to be large enough to accommodate all the deaths in London for centuries to come, and the LNC hoped to gain a monopoly on London's burial industry. The railway mostly ran along the existing tracks of the London and South Western Railway (LSWR), but had its own stations at both London and Brookwood. Trains carried coffins and passengers from a dedicated station in Waterloo, London, onto the LSWR tracks.
The company failed to gain a monopoly of the burial industry, and the scheme was not as successful as its promoters had hoped. While they had planned to carry between 10,000 and 50,000 bodies per year, in 1941 after 87 years of operation only slightly over 200,000 burials had been conducted in Brookwood Cemetery. On the night of 16–17 April 1941 the London terminus was badly damaged in an air raid and was rendered unusable. The London Necropolis Railway was never used again and soon after the end of the Second World War the surviving parts of the London station were sold as office space, and the rail tracks and stations in the cemetery were removed. (Full article...)
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Selected biography
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William Henry Barlow FRS FRSE FICE MIMechE (10 May 1812 – 12 November 1902) was an English civil engineer of the 19th century, particularly associated with railway engineering projects. Barlow was born in Woolwich, the son of mathematician and physist Professor Peter Barlow, who taught at the Royal Military Academy.
From the mid 1840s until 1857, Barlow was chief engineer for the Midland Railway, after which he set up his on consultancy in London. Between 1862 and 1869 he was the consultant engineer on the Midland Railway's extension from Bedford to London, designing St Pancras station and the 240-foot (73 m) wide cast iron and glass train shed roof over the platforms, the widest unsupported arch in the world at the time.
Barlow was also engineer on the completion of Brunel's Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol and sat on the committee which investigated the causes of the Tay Bridge disaster in 1879. He designed the replacement Tay Bridge completed in 1887. In 1880, he was President of the Institution of Civil Engineers. (Full article...)
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Did you know...
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- ...that the first version of the Underground roundel was introduced in 1908, as a solid red disk and blue bar?
- ...that at 44 tons, the locomotives of the Central London Railway's first underground trains were so heavy that they shook buildings as they passed 60 feet below and were scrapped after three years?
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Image 2The Circle routes of Victorian London, comprising the Inner Circle, Middle Circle, Outer Circle and Super Outer Circle.
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Image 3The south façade of King's Cross railway station London terminus of the East Coast Main Line.
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Image 6"Boris Bikes" from the Santander Cycles hire scheme waiting for use at a docking station in Victoria.
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Image 7The multi-level junction between the M23 and M25 motorways near Merstham in Surrey. The M23 passes over the M25 with bridges carrying interchange slip roads for the two motorways in between.
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Image 9The western departures concourse of King's Cross railway station.
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Image 11Albert Bridge, opened in 1873, crosses the River Thames between Chelsea and Battersea.
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Image 13Clapham Common Underground station north and south-bound platforms on the Northern line.
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Image 14A tram of the London United Tramways at Boston Road, Hanwell, circa 1910.
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Image 15Central London Railway poster, published in 1905.
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Image 16Tram 2548 calls at Arena tram stop. This is one of the trams on the Tramlink network centred on Croydon in south London.
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Image 17London General Omnibus Company B-type bus B340 built in 1911 by AEC. One of a number of London buses purchased by the British military during World War I, this vehicle was operated on the Western Front.
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Image 18Helicopter landing at London Heliport, a jetty constructed in the River Thames in Battersea.
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Image 1955 Broadway, headquarters of the UERL and its successors, is a Grade I listed building in Westminster designed by Charles Holden.
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Image 20Day (left) and Night (right) sculptures by Sir Jacob Epstein on the London Underground's headquarters at 55 Broadway.
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Image 22Hammersmith Bridge, opened in 1887, crosses the River Thames in west London.
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Image 24Original stations on the Metropolitan Railway from The Illustrated London News, 27 December 1862.
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Image 25Southern approach to the Rotherhithe Tunnel that runs under the River Thames in east London between Rotherhithe and Limehouse.
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Image 26London Underground A60 Stock (left) and 1938 Stock (right) trains showing the difference in the sizes of the two types of rolling stock operated on the system. A60 stock trains operated on the surface and sub-surface sections of the Metropolitan line from 1961 to 2012 and 1938 Stock operated on various deep level tube lines from 1938 to 1988.
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Image 28Archer statue by Eric Aumonier at East Finchley Underground station.
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Image 29Vauxhall Bridge across the River Thames opened in 1906 and features sculptures by F. W. Pomeroy.
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Image 30The original Hampton Court Bridge in 1753, the first of four on the site.
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Image 31View of Old London Bridge, circa 1632 by Claude de Jongh.
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Image 32London Underground Battery-electric locomotive L16 designed to operate over tracks where the traction current is turned off for maintenance work.
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Image 33The New Routemaster built by Wrightbus has three entrances, two staircases and is designed to be reminiscent of the Routemaster.
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Image 34Hornsey Lane Bridge, Archway, more commonly known as "Suicide Bridge".
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Image 35TX4 London Taxi at Heathrow Airport.
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Image 36Escalators at Westminster Underground station descend between beams and columns of the station box to reach the deep-level Jubilee line platforms.
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Image 37Early style tube roundel in mosaic at Maida Vale Underground station.
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Image 38Ruislip Lido Railway's 12-inch (300 mm) gauge locomotive "Mad Bess" hauling a passenger train.
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Image 40Sailing ships at West India Docks on the Isle of Dogs in 1810. The docks opened in 1802 and closed in 1980 and have since been redeveloped as the Canary Wharf development.
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Image 41The newly constructed junction of the Westway ( A40) and the West Cross Route ( A3220) at White City, circa 1970. Continuation of the West Cross Route northwards under the roundabout was cancelled leaving two short unused stubs for the slip roads that would have been provided for traffic joining or leaving the northern section.
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Image 42Planes waiting at Heathrow Airport's Terminal 4.
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Image 43Arguably the best-preserved disused station building in London, this is the former Alexandra Palace station on the GNR Highgate branch (closed in 1954). It is now in use as a community centre (CUFOS).
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Image 45Preserved AEC Routemaster coaches in London Transport Green Line livery.
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Image 46Woolwich Ferry boats "John Burns" and "James Newman" on the River Thames, 2012.
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Image 47Qantas Boeing 747-400 about to land at Heathrow Airport, seen beyond the roofs of Myrtle Avenue, Hounslow.
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Image 48Rail, road and river traffic, seen from the London Eye.
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