London opened the world's first underground railway in 1863 using steam locomotives that completely filled the poorly ventilated tunnels with toxic, choking smoke.

A closer look

London opened the world's first underground railway in 1863 using steam locomotives that completely filled the poorly ventilated tunnels with toxic, choking smoke. Passengers flocked to the Metropolitan Railway to experience the modern marvel of transit, happily coughing up their lungs while sitting in wooden carriages bathed in soot. The operators tried to fix the issue by cutting random holes in the roof, which mostly just allowed the suffocating smog to blast directly into the faces of wealthy pedestrians walking on the streets above. It took decades before they finally electrified the lines, depriving Victorian commuters of their daily carbon monoxide poisoning and transforming the Tube into the glorious, overpriced, violently overcrowded subterranean sauna we all know and resent today!