underground railway
City's buried trains
An underground railway is a rail transit system built beneath city streets, carrying passengers through tunnels.
The term is primarily British; Americans say subway.
The London Underground, opened in 1863, was the first.
Historically, the Underground Railway (or Railroad) was the network of secret routes and safe houses used by enslaved Black Americans escaping to freedom in the 19th century—neither underground nor a railway, but a covert system with stations, conductors, and passengers.
Urban rail transit
- tubeHollow cylindrical passage
- subwayUnderground transit passage
- platformRaised flat structure
- stationFixed stopping point
tunnel · commute · carriage · passengers · escalator · turnstile · ticket · fare
- safe housesProtected locations for concealment
- fugitive slavesEscaped persons from bondage
- conductorsThose who direct ensembles
- stationmastersThose overseeing rail depots
freedom seekers · escape routes · antislavery · emancipation · secret codes · Quakers · North Star · sanctuary
metro
Urban rail transit
station · tunnel · commute · carriage · passengers · escalator · turnstile · ticket · fare · timetable
Harriet Tubman
- safe housesProtected locations for concealment
- fugitive slavesEscaped persons from bondage
- conductorsThose who direct ensembles
stationmasters · freedom seekers · escape routes · antislavery · emancipation · secret codes · Quakers · North Star · sanctuary · abolitionists
- rail systemsrailroad, light rail, heavy rail, metro, subway
- historic transportcarriage, horse-drawn carriage, coach, phaeton, stagecoach
- underground passagestunnel, adit, drift, subway, mine shaft
- Victorian engineeringsteam engine, iron bridge, suspension bridge, tunnel, viaduct
underground railwayelevated railway
Raised urban train system
elevated train · overground · sky train · skyway · streetcar
underground railwayslave patrol
Groups policing enslaved people
underground, railway, under, ground, undergrounds, railways, grounded, grounding, groundless