thumb|Montage of the Metropolitan Railway's stations from [[The Illustrated London News December 1862, the month before the railway opened|alt=An engraving, titled at the top "The Metropolitan Underground Railway", showing a montage of outside views of the railway stations with people in Victorian dress travelling on foot or by horse. In the centre is an interior view of the original King's Cross station.]]
The Metropolitan Railway (also known as the Met) The increasing resident population and the development of a commuting population arriving by train each day led to a high level of traffic congestion with huge numbers of carts, cabs, and omnibuses filling the roads and up to 200,000 people entering the City of London, the commercial heart, each day on foot. By 1850 there were seven railway termini around the urban centre of London: London Bridge and Waterloo to the south, Shoreditch and Fenchurch Street to the east, Euston and King's Cross to the north, and Paddington to the west. Only Fenchurch Street station was within the City.
The congested streets and the distance to the City from the stations to the north and west prompted many attempts to get parliamentary approval to build new railway lines into the City. None were successful, and the 1846 Royal Commission on Metropolitan Railway Termini<!-- This is Metropolitan Railway in the general sense rather than the specific sense used elsewhere in the article--> banned construction of new lines or stations in the built-up central area.