The word "metro" is of French origin, meaning an urban off-street road. Subsequently, the word metro, or metro for short, migrated to other languages and stuck with the name of underground transport.
Unique mode of transport
It is interesting that the metro appeared back in the days when there were no buses or cars among the ground transport. History dates the appearance of the metro to the middle of the 19th century, namely to 1846. London-born Charles Pearston has presented a new form of transport to the Royal Association of Railways. Its appearance had a very practical motive, because it was difficult for Londoners and visitors to the city to move around, for example, to get from one end of the city to the other. I had to spend a lot of time.
The actual year of the beginning of the construction of the underground railway is considered to be 1860. It is logical that it began in London, the city of the founder of the underground. It is worth saying that the name of the underground railway was given by the name of the construction company that laid it.
The first metro line was only 3.6 km long. It was launched in 1863. The train was pulled by a locomotive and included four carriages. The duration of the first trip in the London Underground was 33 minutes.
By the end of the 19th century, the metro became electrified. In general, if we talk about the history of the development of the underground in the world, then it happened rapidly. And no wonder. This transport turned out to be very convenient for a large city, the movement through which on horse-drawn cars and cabs seemed endless.
Paris Metro is one of a kind
In 1872, the American subway appeared, a little later the Parisian one. It is interesting that the metro of the city of Paris is not like any other. It is believed that this capital has the densest metro stations in terms of the number of metro stations. Sometimes from one station to another it is only 500 m. By the beginning of the 20th century, underground transport reached Eastern Europe. The pioneer here was Budapest.
An escalator appeared in 1911. This was also a revelation, because the escalator made it much easier to descend to the subway cars. Previously, special elevators were intended for these purposes. Due to their low carrying capacity, they had to stand in queues for a long time.
Currently, the metro in different states differ significantly from each other. It depends on the construction time of the subway. The Moscow metro is more spacious and roomy; it was built in the 20th century, more than half a century later than the French, English and American ones. Narrow aprons, old low trains - everything in Europe reminds of the history of the metro.
