By permission of the London County Council
roadway. Passengers can thus, by about twenty-five steps, go to and from the platforms in a few seconds. The ticket-offices are at the bottom of the stairways. The passenger returns at Park Street (the busiest station) are among the largest in the world, being 28,000,000 per annum.
The Boston surface street cars adopt the overhead trolley principle of electric traction, and the elevated railway-cars the third rail system, both these systems being continued throughout the subway.
The subway is illuminated electrically, but a considerable amount of natural light is also obtained, especially at the stations; and Captain Piper, deputy of the New York Police, when on a visit to London last February, discussing the question of ventilation in tube railways, gave it as his opinion that the freshest air he had “struck” in an underground railway was at Boston. “The air,” he said, “is excellent.”
The subway is, of course, perfectly clean, smokeless, and comparatively quiet; neither in the streets can any noise be heard from the cars that are continually passing close beneath. By an extension of the subway under Boston harbour, the surface lines in the district of East Boston are connected with the main system, thus making the entire length eight miles of single track.
NEW YORK
In New York, after much careful consideration of the advantages and disadvantages of deep tunnels (tubes) and shallow railways, the Rapid Transit Commissioners decided upon the latter as being likely to give the best facilities for quick travelling. On account of its peculiar peninsular shape, admitting of extension in one direction
