The London Underground, also referred to as the "tube", is a rapid transit system covering the Greater London area, as well as parts of the surrounding counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire. London Underground is the oldest in the world, the first lines opened in 1863, and in 1890, electric trains began travelling on the Tube. The first underground trains looked very exotic: there were no windows in the carriages (why would there be windows in dark underground tunnels?) and and the cars were pulled by a coal-fuelled locomotive.
Already in the early 19th century, the streets of London could not cope with the increased traffic, and the construction of the underground railway was the best way solved the problem of relieving the streets, organising the city's transport and unifying of surface railways into a single network. In 1855, Parliament decided to build an underground railway from Paddington Station to Farrington Street via King's Cross called the Metropolitan Railway, which later became the name of a new form of urban public transport. Due to funding difficulties, construction was delayed, and the first passengers were not able to travel on the Metropolitan Railway only on 10 January 1863.
The London Underground has 270 stations and the length of its lines is 402 kilometres - the longest underground in the world after the Shanghai Underground. In terms of the number of stations, it is also among the leaders, and in terms of the number of passengers carried (1bn in 2007) it is the third largest in Europe after Moscow and Paris.
Four of the 11 lines of the London Underground are shallow, the rest are deep. The longest escalator in Europe is at London station Angel station - 60 metres long, with a vertical rise of 27.5 metres.
The underground is divided into zones, and fares are paid depending on which zone you are travelling from and to. When using contactless transport cards (Oyster Card, "oyster") fares are discounted. Unlike in Russia, the London Underground has controllers, and fines for fare dodging can be quite substantial.
Opening hours are approximately from 5am to midnight, at weekends some lines may close earlier.
The London Underground has been the subject of several television series and has been the setting for numerous "urban legends".
