The New York Rapid-transit Subway

Proceedings.] DISCUSSION ON NEW YORK SUBWAY. 71 they sometimes had a smell. It had been his privilege to be Mi. Mott, associated with the late Sir Benjamin Baker in making several tube railways in London. Sir Benjamin did not care for tubes and would have gladly substituted a subway, but on going into the designs and estimates tlie conclusion was come to that in London subways were impossible. In the case of the Central London railway the cost per mile was rather higher than Mr. Galbraith had given for the Waterloo and City—it was £631,000; but then the Central London had very expensive land to purchase, which was not the case with the Waterloo and City line. The estimate of cost for the cheapest kind of subway in London that Sir Benjamin Baker worked out was practically £1,000,000 per mile, which included the pipe-sub- way, and diversion of the various electric cables, sewers, etc. That was practically the cost of the latest shallow railway, the White- chapel and Bow line ; the actual cost of construction was, he thought, £780,000 per mile, to which had to be added the cost of equip- ment. From experience in constructing the station for the Central London railway at the Bank, he thought the cost of moving pipes was much greater than anticipated in making the estimates. The cost of diverting the pipes and wires for the Central London station at the Bank for a distance of about 300 yards was £25,000. Sir John Wolfe Barry had stated that he had constructed a line of 13 mile and the total expense of diversion of pipes, etc., was only £26,000. Mr. Mott did not see how that could be reconciled with his own experi- ence, because in congested areas the cost worked out in practice at very much more than that. Mr. Fitzmaurice had been asked by the Traffic Commission to make an estimate for a shallow subway, for their convenience, and his estimate worked out at £1,000,000 per mile through the congested area ; but Mr. Mott was rather inclined to think that with the later experience Mr. Fitzmaurice had had in diverting pipes for the conduit system of tramways, which necessitated going only to a depth of 3 or 4 feet, he would probably increase his estimate. Another very serious difficulty in London in the way of constructing shallow tramways was that there were few remaining routes where such a subway could possibly be made, because there were so many existing impediments which could not be diverted, such as shallow railways and main sewers running at right angles to the routes. To have a shallow subway with gradients suitable for working was impossible, because the sub- way would have to dip so frequently to get under the railways and other things that it would ultimately come to tube construction with lifts. That, he thought, was inevitable, and was altogether apart from the question of cost. Ile thought the difficulty