Asia’s first underground railway system commenced operation in Tokio in 1927. Beijing has not initially been quick in catching up, as its citizens had to wait until 1969 for the city’s first line of underground railway – more than 100 years after the first such system had been opened in London. Today however, the situation has changed dramatically and for less than a dozen years China has witnessed unprecedented rate of growth and development of their underground railway systems. Remarkably, it is not only Beijing that is building and expanding its underground railway – a few dozen other cities in China are planning to build or have indeed already initiated the process of developing their own underground railway systems. It is also noteworthy that the overall length of tracks forming underground railway systems in South Korea and Japan is steadily growing.