Sunday 12 April 2015

People at Work

stamp card showing men tunnelling for the London Underground

History repeats itself.  There have been men tunnelling under London until just a few weeks ago to create the new Crossrail routes with 21 km of new tunnels.  They have had the benefits of modern tunnelling machines which the men in the stamp card above did not.

These men were creating the first underground electric railway, using a Greathead Shield.  They had to dig out the clay from behind the the shield then force the shield forward.  The original image for the stamp card above came from the London Transport Museum and you can see it on the Transport for London site.

The stamps and stamp cards were issued in 2013 to commemorate 150 years of the London Underground.  I did show this card just over two years ago.

This is a post for Sunday Stamps, in its current home at "See it on a Postcard!"

9 comments:

  1. I cannot imagine what it must have been like to dig those tunnels 150 years ago!

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  2. I watched the tv series about building the modern tunnel which was amazing but for pure hard graft those Victorians have it all.

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  3. Hard work, indeed and now it's done by a machine. Great stamp - the type we do well.

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  4. I thought the set celebrating the underground was particularly well done. Clever design to mimic the lines from the map to show the year and describe the image.

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  5. Very cool info, I didn't know they called it the underground railroad. I tend to only think of the slaves here in the States with regard to that word. Great way to teach history to have things like this on postage stamps.

    Sandy at Bridge and Beyond

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  6. These men must have been extremely hardworking, building a tunnel back at that time when they don't have the advantage of technology that we have now!

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  7. OK that looks cramped and very hot-neat stamp and picture

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Welcome to my postcard collection! I love hearing what you think of the cards - but spam WILL be deleted.

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