The
Metropolitan Railway (also known as the
Met) was a passenger and goods railway that served
London from 1863 to 1933, its main line heading north-west from the capital's financial heart in
the City to what were to become the
Middlesex suburbs. Its first line connected the main-line
railway termini at , , and to the City. The first section was built beneath the
New Road using the "
cut-and-cover" method between Paddington and King's Cross and in tunnel and cuttings beside
Farringdon Road from King's Cross to near
Smithfield, near the City. It opened to the public on 10 January 1863 with gas-lit wooden carriages hauled by steam locomotives, the world's first underground railway.