Several years ago an underground railway company was chartered, and set about the construction of a line. A little work had been done, and only a little. The route was surveyed and laid out, and the managers of the company set about raising the needed capital. Somehow the desired money was not forthcoming, and up to this time the railway has existed more on paper and in the minds of its advocates than in the locality where it was to be constructed.
THE VIADUCT RAILWAY.
A year or so after this line was chartered, another scheme was proposed for making a railway on brick arches, to be known as the Viaduct Railway. It was in the hands of men then in power in New York, and soon after the organization of the company it was announced that a large amount of stock had been taken. The route was surveyed, and maps were published, showing the proposed line of travel. There were many real estate speculations growing out of it, and the supposition is, that the managers of the Viaduct Railway pocketed handsome amounts of money out of these speculations; but somehow the public did not grasp with any confidence the enterprise, which was in the hands of the magnates of the Tammany Ring, and the Viaduct Railroad, at the time I write, exists only on paper.
After this failure to meet the much felt want, the genius of Vanderbilt was brought into action. The commodore, as he was called, was able, by the influence he could bring to bear on the legislature, to secure a charter for an underground railway from City Hall to the upper end of the island. He went at it in a business-like way, and promised that in a few years one could ride under ground from the City Hall to Harlem in twenty minutes.
If Vanderbilt had lived to the age of Methuselah, and continued in vigorous health, he would doubtless have done something for rapid transit whenever he found that it would carry business to his railway. But his grand scheme of several years ago amounted to nothing, and shrewd people suspected that he was satisfied with the existing surface roads.
SPHERICAL TRANSPORTATION.
Among the schemes that have been proposed for rapid travel and transportation of freight, there is one which purposes to make use of tubes, either under ground or on the surface, in which spheres or globes shall be placed, and propelled by means of a rapid current of air. The inventor claims that a sphere will move through a tube with very little friction, and can be driven with great rapidity. He would make a tube several feet in diameter, and have his spheres so arranged that they could be opened and filled with freight, then closed, properly fastened, placed in the tube, and started. I believe that he proposes to propel them one or two hundred miles an hour, at comparatively slight expense. For certain kinds of freight this mode of transportation and propulsion might be well enough, but there are things for which it would not answer. Imagine, for example, one of the spheres filled with fresh strawberries in Virginia for transportation to New York. The strawberries would be constantly rolled against each other, so that by the time they reached New York they would be in a condition of jelly.
As a passenger route this line would have great disadvantages. Imagine a man enclosed in a sphere, either doubled or laid out horizontally, to make a journey from New York to Washington. He would be standing alternately on his head and on his feet about one hundred times a minute, and if he went through alive it would be a wonder, and he would be likely to be very much confused; especially if he were not packed tightly in his travelling-box, he would have a rough time of it. Every square inch of his body would be covered with bruises, and, besides, he would have a hard time to breathe, as the supply of air would be exceedingly limited.