The New York Rapid-transit Subway

Proceedings.] DISCUSSION ON NEW YORK SUBWAY. 95 now, but in a wide street like Oxford Street, with luck, it might be Mr. Hudleston possible to manage with very little disturbance of sewers. The main sewer along Oxford Street was the Middle Level sewer, which in most, but not all, cases was laid at a considerable depth. Assuming the sewers had only to be diverted at stations, it did not seem to involve very much work ; but along the whole length of the route there were heavy pipes that would have to be shifted, and the universal practice in London was to insist that anything of that sort should be laid in new pipe subways. That was practically the wayleave that would have to be paid for carrying a subway along important streets, disregarding entirely the question of property in cellars if they were touched. Those tilings added together, meant at least another £100,000 per mile for sewers, pipes, and pipe-subways added to the mere cost of the carcass of the surface-subway railway. Under the most favourable conditions, therefore, it could hardly be expected that any subway could be made for less than the cost of making a tube, even when the capitalized value of the lifts was added. Sir George Gibb put that at £40,000 per mile, which he himself thought was a little low. Tlie capitalized value of tlie Central London lifts would be nearer £60,000 per mile, because they cost about £15,000 a year altogether to work and maintain, which, at 25 years’ purchase, was £60,000 per mile. Adding all tliat to the other sum, £320,000 per mile was obtained as the cost of the tube, which was practically the same as a subway. He thought there could be no expectation of saving anything in first cost, even under the most favourable circumstances, on a subway through London, where pipe-subways had to be built. In the open it was another matter. With regard to the possibilities of constructing subways, Mr. Mott had remarked that it was doubtful whether a subway were practicable. Considering the question in detail, Mr. Hudleston thought it was practically impossible. For example, a subway along the line of the Central London Bailway could start at the surface at Shepherd’s Bush, but immediately afterwards it would run into the West London line at a level crossing, which meant that it would have ■ to drop into tunnel: the station would have to be in tunnel, and it would be very much like a tube railway. Having passed that, the sub- way could come close to the surface for a short distance, but presently it would reach the foot of High Street, Notting Hill Gate, where there was a gradient of about 1 in 30, and he did not think even tlie most sanguine advocate of subways would care to face such an incline. Even if lie did, when lie got to tliat point lie would find the Inner Circle in his way and he would have to drop down again underneath. So that practically the whole of that length would be in tube or in