London has in recent years gained a loop railway that runs around the suburbs, but 100 years ago, a proposal was made for a much larger loop which would have dramatically changed how we see the city today.
Back when London was surrounded by more green and had just one airport, a radical scheme was cooked up for a high-speed monorail linking city to airport. And not just any monorail -- these "trains" could also run on roads!
Imagine if you will, a giant flat surface larger than Trafalgar Square overhanging the River Thames -- this was the proposed central London Helidrome.
A giant railway terminus was once planned for central London that would have swept away all the land between Holborn and Farringdon. Obviously never built, its failure indirectly lead to the creation of the London Underground.
Around 160 years ago, plans were announced for a skyscraper in London that would have a summit even higher than The Shard stands today.
Imagine a tube tunnel running under Southwark and the City, but carrying full size mainline trains -- and you would be imagining something that was actually proposed.
When London Bridge was being shipped off the to USA, one of the ideas mooted for its modern replacement was a high level, covered travolator to help speed pedestrians from the railway station to the City.
Back in the late 1980s, plans were seriously looked at which could have seen a new Northern Line spur constructed between Kennington, and either Streatham, or along the proposed Bakerloo Line extension, towards Peckham.
Fairly recently, a chap called Moffat wrote a story about an underground railway in Westminster -- to considerable fury of tube geeks who spent an inordinate time chewing over holes in the plot.
A little over 100 years ago a radical new form of underground railway was proposed -- a monorail of most unusual design, but one that would be designed like an underground roller coaster with sharp declines and ascents between stations.