The New York Rapid-transit Subway

Proceedings.] DISCUSSION ON NEW YORK SUBWAY. 109 and the expense which was incurred from time to time in working Mr, Haigh, depended on the number of passengers. One curious feature. was that although 166,000,000 passengers per annum were carried on Subway, after an expenditure of £15,000,000, and there was a gross revenue of 10 per cent, and a net revenue of 6 per • cent , je no private enterprise was to be found to carry the undertaking through whereas in London, where the tubes did not pay at present, the work had been done by private enterprise. It simply showed that the results could not be foreseen even by the most acute financial min . It was difficult to discern from the discussion whether the terf mouth or eyes did water most in considering the 166000,000 passengers on the Subway. There were other methods of transi on Manhattan Island, and in some places the tramways an elevated railroads passed along the same street. The tramways, believed, carried three times the amount of traffic the Subway carr . Strange to say, the out-of-date horse-tramway was still in use M would suggest as a subject for consideration, from the points of view of hygiene and of costs in street-cleaning and indirect ways, that horse omnibuses in London should be suppressed gradually. A remarkable feature about the construction of the Subway was its extreme simplicity, whereby easy adaptation to local requirements was secured The forest of stanchions spoken of by Mr. Read had not a very good appearance, but the posts were simple and strong, and they afforded an exceedingly facile means of making necessary changes in the width of the subway. The variation from single line to double line, and from double line to four lines, was simply made by leaving out posts, or re-spacing them and changing the length of he girders, as the case might be ; and the subway being rectangular, the cant of the rails on sharp curves was easily allowed for by re-spacing the standards a few inches. The extreme adaptability of the stan- dards was certainly an admirable feature, and the cost of using them was correspondingly small. With regard to the type of station in vogue on the London tubes, the enlarging of the tube from running- tunnels to station-tunnels was the most expensive, troublesome, and dangerous feature in the whole of the tube system, but if special attention were given to the study of economical, and expeditions tunnelling a suitable form of station could be devised which would not involve that defect. Not only would this avoid the delays occurring in breaking up for the large stations, but it would produce a cheaper structure and a more suitable one in many respects. The loads that had been allowed for on the Subway seemed to be very LLIC 1VC0VN VAAIC 1 0 slight, especially in the residential districts, where only 500 lbs. per square foot was taken for the superimposed load. It seemed a wrong