Figure 28.—Thames Tunnel in use by London Underground railway. (Illustrated London News, 1869?)
Figure 29.—Placing a segment of cast-iron lining in Greathead's Tower Subway, 1869. To the rear is the shield's diaphragm or bulkhead. MHT model—1½" scale. (Smithsonian photo 49260-B.)
BEACH’S BROADWAY SUBWAY
Almost simultaneously with the construction of the Tower Subway, the first American shield tunnel was driven by Alfred Ely Beach (1826-1896). Beach, as editor of the Scientific American and inventor of, among other things, a successful typewriter as early as 1856, was well known and respected in technical circles. He was not a civil engineer, but had become concerned with New York’s pressing traffic problem (even then) and as a solution, developed plans for a rapid-transit subway to extend the length of Broadway. He invented a shield as an adjunct to this system, solely to permit driving of the tunnel without disturbing the overlying streets.
An active patent attorney as well, Beach must certainly have known of and studied the existing patents for tunneling shields, which were, without exception, British. In certain aspects his shield resembled the one patented by Barlow in 1864, but never built. However, work on the Beach tunnel started in 1869, so close in time to that on the Tower Subway, that it is unlikely that there was any influence from that source. Beach had himself patented a shield, in June 1869, a two-piece, sectional design that bore no resemblance to the one used. His subway plan had been first introduced at the 1867 fair of the American Institute in the form of a short plywood tube through which a small, close-fitting car was blown by a fan. The car carried 12 passengers. Sensing opposition to the subway scheme from Tammany, in 1868 Beach obtained a charter to place a small tube beneath Broadway for transporting mail and small packages pneumatically, a plan he advocated independently of the passenger subway.
