In the middle of the 19th century London had a problem:
It had too many dead people,
and not nearly enough burial plots.
Recently diseased bodies were having to be exhumed and then scattered
in order to make room for more people to be put in the ground.
Now that was obviously an enormous health risk,
that contributed to cholera epidemics,
which in turn contributed to more dead poeple.
And so two industrialists came up with an audacious plan:
They would build Europe's largest cemetery 20 miles outside of London in Brookwood.
And they would run trains from there to here--
to this terminus here in Waterloo--
and it would be the London Necropolis railway.
There would be first class funerals,
and second class funerals,
and third class funerals,
which at least guaranteed you a gravesite,
which was a cut above the mass graves that London was using at the time
for the dead that couldn't afford anything better.
And here is the astonishing thing, the thing you might not know:
It worked!
The London Necropolis railway was a real thing for nearly a century.
The first train ran in 1854,
and while the motor car starting to become popular did diminish the service
in the 20th century.
It ran until World War II.
The only thing that stopped it was the bombing out
of the railway tracks, and this whole area during the Blitz.
If those tracks hadn't been bombed out, theoretically,
we could still be seeing 21st century hearse trains going out to Brookwood.
And that is something you might not have known.
[Closed captions by MM. Translating these subtitles? Add your name here!]