The New York Rapid-transit Subway

132 CORRESPONDENCE ON NEW YORK SUBWAY. [Minutes of Mr. Waring, thought the designs of the station-platforms were susceptible of improvement. For express trains consisting of eight cars, each 51 feet 5 inches in length overall, and for local trains of five such cars, he observed that the length of the platforms at both local and express stations was more than 50 feet less than the length of the trains. In the most favourable circumstances, therefore, namely with the centre of the train brought to a standstill exactly opposite the centre of the platform there would be available only one doorway for eacli of the end carriages, and owing to the presence of columns close to the edge of the platforms in stations of type A it was conceivable that one of these doorways might be practically useless. Further, these columns were stated to be 15 feet apart, while from Figs. 21, Plate 6, it would appear that the distance between the centres of the doorways of the carriage was 45 feet ; if, therefore, the train was brought to a standstill so that one doorway of any inter- mediate carriage was opposite to a column, the other one would be similarly blocked, and it was thus possible that in a local train four doors out of the total of ten might be practically unavailable for rapid entrance or exit. He also observed that the central portion of the platforms at stations of the A type was 20 feet wide for a length of 100 feet, the platforms for the rest of their length, namely 50 feet in each direction, being only 10 feet wide ; the natural tendency of passengers waiting for a train would therefore be, he thought, to congregate at the central portion, and then, in the event of the central carriages of the train being full, there would be a rush to the narrow ends of the platform, which he thought must entail a certain amount of delay and risk that would have been obviated to a con- siderable extent had the ends of the platforms been wider and the platforms of a uniform width throughout. In England columns were not allowed within 6 feet of the edge of a platform, and on a railway constructed specially for rapid transit he thought that any reasonable expense in avoiding the use of the columns so near to the edge of the platform would have been well warranted. Upon a railway of this character the platforms were a very important detail, and perhaps the Author would kindly explain their construction, as Mr. Waring failed to find in the Paper any details of this. Some of the platforms on the Metropolitan District railway were of fine concrete or artificial stone laid in situ without joints. When the stone was first laid the surface was roughened, but the roughness wore off comparatively soon, and the platforms became dangerously slippery, especially near entrances and exits. He there- fore thought that the use of this material was to be avoided. The superelevation of the outer rail on the curves, as calculated