Underground Electric Railways Company of London Its early success resulted in a rush of proposals to Parliament for other deep-level routes under the capital, but by 1901 only two more lines had opened: the Waterloo & City Railway (W&CR) in 1898 and the Central London Railway (CLR) in 1900. Construction had started on one other line and then stopped following a financial crisis. The rest of the companies were struggling to raise funding. The District Railway (DR) was a sub-surface underground railway which had opened in 1868. Its steam-hauled services operated around the "Inner Circle" and on branches to Hounslow, Wimbledon, Richmond, Ealing, Whitechapel and New
London Underground Electronic ticketing in the form of the contactless Oyster card was introduced in 2003. London Underground services on the East London line ceased in 2007 so that it could be extended and converted to London Overground operation, and in December 2009 the Circle line changed from serving a closed loop around the centre of London to a spiral also serving Hammersmith. Since September 2014, passengers have been able to use contactless cards on the Tube. Their use has grown very quickly and now over a million contactless transactions are made on the Underground every day. The Underground serves 270 stations.