Future of the Tube

At the London Transport Museum last week, I saw an amazing print of how the London Underground & transport in London might look in the future. It was drawn from around 1790 - 1830. Unfortunately I can't remember the exact date and who the artist was (if someone knows can they let me know), but I love seeing people's visions of the future from hundreds of years ago to compare with how things really are now.


The above image is a cartoon so not meant to be entirely serious, but it's brilliant to see the cartoonist imagine the London Tube, or rather the Grand Vacuum Tube Company, going directly to Bengal from London.

There's a wagon below the Tube predicting London to Bath in six hours. Also the futuristic Steam Horse Velocity meant "No sloppage on the road". If you look carefully at the flying pig in the air, you'll see that it's an airship full of convicts bound for New South Wales. Enlarge the picture and you'll see many other predictions for the transport in London.

I wonder how many people will be looking at Transport for London's current plans for the system in 2012 in a 100 or 200 years time and shaking their heads or laughing?

Update - thanks to Mother of the Bride - found out that it was drawn by William Heath around 1830 (so my guess of timing wasn't too bad) and is called March of Intellect

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, January 21, 2009 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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