The London Underground was the birthplace of the subway. Albus said he had a complete map of London on his knee, though he had never shown it to anyone.
That depended on when the map was from. In 1863, there had only been one subway line in the entire world, so even if he had just one scar on his knee, it would still have been a complete map of the London Underground.
King's Cross Station had opened in 1852. It was not a subway station, but a railway station. The "King's Cross Station" that had caught fire last year had actually been King's Cross Underground Station, located between the British Library and King's Cross Station. It had opened in 1868. The fire had started in an equipment room beneath an escalator. Since the station's escalators were antiquated wooden ones, the blaze had rapidly spread into the crisscrossing underground passages. Not only had the lower platforms become a sea of fire, but the upper central concourse had also been swallowed by smoke and flames.
The passengers waiting in the station had descended into chaos, with people running everywhere through the central ticket hall. If there had been enough staff in the Underground to direct and evacuate them, perhaps the casualties would have been fewer.
However, that formerly state-owned line had already been privatized. To cut costs, the Underground company had laid off employees. Firefighters had also been delayed because they had not received a map of the underground passageways in time. To keep panicked passengers from throwing themselves into the flames, firefighters and police had blocked off several dangerous exits and brought in a train to carry away the passengers trapped by the fire.
The official investigation had concluded that it was an accident, but there had also been "rumors"