Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXVIII, Sept. 1910 / The New York Tunnel Extension of the Pennsylvania Railroad, / The North River Division. Paper No. 1151

These observations are written with the purpose of outlining briefly, as far as the writer was concerned, the evolution of the scheme of bringing the Pennsylvania Railroad and the Long Island Railroad into New York City, and also, as Chief Engineer of the North River Division of the New York Tunnel Extension of the Pennsylvania Railroad, to record in a general way some of the leading features of the work on this division, which is that portion of the work extending from the east line of Ninth Avenue, New York City, to the Hackensack Portal on the westerly side of the Palisades, as an introduction to the papers by the Chief Assistant Engineer and the Resident Engineers describing in detail the work as constructed.
It may be stated that, since shortly after the year 1871, when the Pennsylvania Railroad system was extended to New York Harbor through the lease of the New Jersey Lines, the officers of that company have been desirous of reaching New York City by direct rail connection.
The writer's first connection with the tunneling of the North River was early in 1890, when he was consulted by the late Austin Corbin, President of the Long Island Railroad Company and the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Company, as to the feasibility of connecting the Long Island Railroad with the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad (or with the Central Railroad of New Jersey, which was the New York connection of the Reading) by a tunnel from the foot of Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, under the Battery and New York City, and directly across the North River to the terminal of the Central Railroad of New Jersey. Surveys, borings, and thorough investigations were made, and the Metropolitan Underground Railroad Company was incorporated in the State of New York to construct this railroad. Mr. Corbin, however, was aware that, in the transportation problem he had in hand, the Central Railroad of New Jersey and the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad were not as important factors as the Pennsylvania Railroad, and, in consequence, he abandoned the scheme for a tunnel to the Central Railroad of New Jersey for a line direct to the Pennsylvania Railroad terminal in Jersey City.