Tube Direct Watercolour 3

This is Euston again. It wasn't one of the original stations on the City and South London Railway, which opened in 1890. The line reached Euston in 1907. The C and SLR was the world's first deep level Underground railway line, and so it really was the first 'Tube'. Previous lines like the Metropolitan and the District railways were 'cut and cover' lines - trenches were dug, and the roofed over. The C and SLR was also the world's first major railway to use electric traction. You can see one of the original cars in the painting. They were underpowered - the first terminus in the City of London was King William Street station. The trains had to negotiate a slight incline up into the station, and often had great difficulty doing so. The station was closed in 1900 when the line was extended to Moorgate.

The City and South London deep level tube lines were Ingenious the way that it was done. Basically it used a machine called a Greathead shield. It protected men hacking away at the tunnels until they could install the circular ring sections which made the tunnel walls. James Greathead built on the earlier work of Marc Isambard Brunel, (Isambard's dad) who invented the first tunneling shield after being fascinated by the way that the shipworm - teredo navalis - lines its tunnels with its own excreta. Mind you, it still took him the best part of 20 years to build the first Thames tunnel - not the least because it kept flooding and the money ran out, dumping him in debtor's prison. Coming back to the deep level tunnels of the London Underground, of course, the thing that really helped was London's clay soil.

So this is another direct watercolour. I'd like to think that these pictures I've bee painting since the 2023 challenge ended wouldn't have been any better if I had sketched them in pencil first. I do really enjoy the challenge of direct watercolour very much.