double track continuing along Broadway to Kingsbridge, and another double track going in an easterly direction under the Harlem river to the Bronx district. Each of these branches is seven miles long, making a total length, for the whole system, of twenty-one miles, seven being for four track and fourteen for double track. The northerly ends of the double-track line are on the surface for a combined distance of about five miles, the remainder being shallow underground. At convenient points inclines lead to the surface from the subway, and are linked to street trams and elevated railroads. Electricity is exclusively used for traction and lighting, and the cost of the entire scheme was originally estimated at £7,000,000.
Now, what is the conclusion to be come to as to the adaptability of the shallow underground system to our vast metropolis, whose station at Liverpool Street is the busiest in the world, with its “turnover” of forty-five millions of passengers per annum; St. Lazare, at Paris, coming next with forty-three millions?
In newly-constructed thoroughfares provision for shallow subways, and for sewers, pipes, cables, etc., can be easily made; but in old-established streets the difficulty and expense in making them would be formidable, as vaults and cellars used for business purposes frequently extend right across the narrow carriage-ways, and a perfect network of conduits would have to be displaced and moved either below or alongside the subway.
Some idea of the cost of interfering with sewers may be gathered by the fact that in constructing the New York subway an entirely new outfall sewer, over six feet in diameter, had to be built one mile in length! On the other hand, labour is cheaper in this country than in America, and in London there is no rock to be removed as in New York.
In conclusion, I would quote from the report of Lieutenant-Colonel Yorke, who was sent over to Paris two or three years ago by the Board of Trade to inspect the Métropolitain. He thinks that as regards convenience for passengers and economy of working, the balance of advantage lies with the shallow tunnel or subway as compared with the deep-level tube. But he hesitates a little when confronted with the thought of what would happen to London while its roadways were in process of being undermined. The difficulties in the way of adopting the subway would, he says, be great, though he does not emphatically declare that he considers them prohibitive; and he approves of the attempt made to introduce the system in the manner adopted by the London County Council beneath the new street between Holborn and the Strand.
CHAPTER XV
HORSELESS VEHICLES—ELECTRICAL AND OTHERWISE
“Cars without horses will go.”—Mother Shipton.
PRIVATE MOTOR-CARS
THE above prediction, constantly quoted at the advent of railways, is being realised with the utmost exactness. Except the late craze for cycling, nothing is more remarkable than the boom in the motor-car.