The W&C is only 1-1/2 miles long, but it has been a very important line, carrying far more passengers than many much longer lines elsewhere. It owes its origin to the fact that, like most other main line railway terminal stations bringing passengers from afar to the city of London, the Waterloo terminus of the LSWR was still a long way from the real centre of the City. The W&C remained until very recently under the ownership of the LSWR and its successors, and it was the only underground railway not to come into the empire of the Underground or the Metropolitan companies, nor therefore of the London Passenger Transport Board, at any rate not until nearly 101 years after the passing of its Act which created it. But in 1994 it was transferred to the London Underground. The line today, and its two stations, is still very much the same as when first built, with various small improvements, especially better access facilities at the City end, and it was completely re-equipped with new rolling stock in 1940 and again in 1993. The W&C has always been physically isolated from all other railways, both surface and underground.Its total physical isolation has always meant that rolling stock cannot be taken onto or off it by ordinary conventional methods, and this can only be done vertically, by means of a hoist or a crane. Presented in an A5 format, this book is casebound with a gold-blocked spine. It consists of 464 pages, with 230 illustrations.