THE LIVERPOOL TRAMWAYS

Three-phase plant, 10,000 kilowatts.Direct-current plant, 1,200 kilowatts.

The engines used to produce this are of 16,000 h.p. capacity, while each of the generators is of the great weight of ninety tons, almost the largest in existence for traction work.

Altogether, the tramway enterprise of Glasgow is in its magnitude and its good management almost unique. The size of its power-house will be surpassed by that which supplies the Electrified Metropolitan District Railway; but the wise and economical arrangement of its traffic can hardly be beaten, and is a model to other large cities and towns contemplating the adoption of electric tramway traction.

On a large scale are the Liverpool Corporation Tramways, the total mileage being 127 of single track, the rolling-stock 451 cars, and the capital a little over a million.

When the Corporation acquired the Liverpool United Tramways and Omnibus Company’s undertaking, in 1897, they at once decided to use electricity on the overhead trolley system, instead of horses. Singularly graceful centre and bracket poles with arched arms and scroll-work were adopted in the wide thoroughfares, and in the narrow streets the overhead conductor-wire was upheld by rosettes attached to buildings on each side.

The new cars are remarkably fine and comfortable, and include the Continental single-deck, with a side entrance, and the double-deck, about 27 feet long, with doors at the ends, and with three large, well-curtained plate-glass windows on each side. A special kind of staircase is fitted to these double-deckers to enable people, the aged and infirm in particular, to descend in safety even when the cars are in motion. They are alsofitted with useful revolving route-indicators, which, being illuminated, light up the upper deck as well. No one can grumble at the fares charged, which are at the rate of one penny per stage of two miles. That these tramways are a great boon is shown by the enormous number of passengers—nearly 100,000,000—carried last year.

At Pumpfields, near the Exchange and Waterloo Goods Stations, and at Lister, near Newsham Park, are the power stations, each housing plant of 15,000 horse-power (up to 7,500 kilowatt capacity). The energy is distributed to sub-stations, and thence to the cars at the safe orthodox pressure of 500 volts.

The Liverpool tramway routes necessitate many twistings and turnings. The junction of lines at the intersection of the London Road and Lime Street is a sight worth seeing, there being at that place special trackwork with sixteen points.

Manchester—fifth largest city in the empire—has a wide district to serve, as the Corporation works certain tramways in such districts as Stockport, Heaton-Norris, etc. Thus its track consists of 150 miles of single line, and its rolling-stock of 600 cars, worked on the overhead trolley system.

These cars are of three sizes, and carry respectively 67, 43, and 20 passengers, the smallest cars being single-deck. The larger ones have six nicely-draped plate-glass windows on each side, and the upholstery, fittings, and lighting are excellent.

The estimated capital expenditure is the same as at Glasgow, two millions sterling. A speciality of the Manchester Tramways undertaking is its splendid car depôt, the site covering three acres, two and a halfof which is roofed over. The façade to Boyle Street is 700 feet long, and reminds one of some large and picturesque public school, a tramway-car depôt being the last thing one would take it to be. It is claimed to be the largest car-shed area in Europe, and the covered-in portion is the most extensive in the world. In this and three other similar sheds and a few smaller ones elsewhere all the cars are stabled. Formerly they were concentrated in one place.

FIG. 19. FAÇADE OF QUEEN’S ROAD CAR-SHED, MANCHESTER CORPORATION TRAMWAYSBy permission of theManchester Corporation Tramways.

FIG. 19. FAÇADE OF QUEEN’S ROAD CAR-SHED, MANCHESTER CORPORATION TRAMWAYS

By permission of theManchester Corporation Tramways.

The cars are of the British Thomson-Houston Company type, double-motored, and are fine examples of elegance and solidity combined, and fitted with all the latest improvements for the comfort of travellers.

Birmingham, as regards tramways, stands in a peculiar position. Its city area is restricted; it has only short lengths of tram lines, and these require to be linked up with outlying districts. The lines were leased tothe City of Birmingham Tramways Company, but whether the Corporation will or will not take them over now, has not yet been decided. However, by a majority of fourteen votes it has sanctioned the substitution of electricity on the overhead method, and this is being proceeded with; and when the transformation is complete Birmingham and district will have an electric tramway system of nearly a hundred and ten miles. Its tramways have always been popular, and at a charge of a penny for a three-mile ride—a record for cheapness—56,000 passengers made use of them on Mafeking Day, no small proportion of a city of 522,182 inhabitants!

Before quitting the subject of tramways, it will be interesting to note the fares charged in different parts of the world. In London they begin at a halfpenny. On the Continent they vary; for example, in Berlin the fare is 1¼d.for two miles, and a halfpenny for each additional mile; in Paris it is 3d. inside, with transfer ticket, and 1½d.on the platforms, or outside the car; in St. Petersburg 1¼d.and 1½d.is the fare; in Stockholm it is the curious sum of 1⅜d.; in Florence it is 1d.from the suburbs to the city, and 1½d.across the city; in Cape Town it is 3d.for three miles; and in Canada the fare averages 2½d., and 5d.after midnight.

The memorable question once put to the House of Commons, “What is a pound?” to this day has not met with a strictly accurate reply. The same may be said of the frequent inquiry, “What constitutes a Light Railway?”

Under the Act of 1896 a Tube should officially be described as a Light Railway. So should a Shallow Underground, an Urban Tramway, and a Rural Tramway.So, too, should a Brighton Beach Line, or any short train running along a pier. So also should any railway line for the carrying of minerals, worked by heavy sixty-ton locomotives, and hauling five or six hundred tons of ore at a time!Reductio ad absurdum.

The originators of the Act did not define what a Light Railway really is, but they evidently had in their minds,inter alia, that railways, unrestricted by Board of Trade regulations as to fencing, sidings, gradients, and permanent stations, should be permitted to run along the high roads, acting as feeders to the existing lines, to the benefit of the small towns, villages, and farms near which they passed. Thus a pleasing vision unfolded itself of revived agricultural prosperity, of handy little trams peacefully steaming along the highways, stopping, when hailed, at some convenient corner, where the farmers’ waggons would be in waiting with produce to be taken away to market in exchange for goods delivered to them.

It was a promising idea, for the cost of construction per mile would necessarily bear no comparison with that of ordinary heavy railways. But in this form Light Railways were not developed. Agriculturists abandoned the hope of any immediate relief, and it came to be recognised that the Act meant a development, not of goods, but of passenger traffic, and that, so far as extra-urban districts were concerned, Light Railways meant Tramways, just as they did in town or city.

It may be asked, “Do not local railways answer all requirements of the ever-increasing population and already congested districts? Whereabouts are these country tramways that we hear so much about? and in what respects are they so useful and necessary?”

For goods the network of local railways covering thecountry is no doubt fairly sufficient, and eventually, when well-organised services of electric-motor waggons aid in feeding them with merchandise collected and delivered at the very doors of consignor and consignee, they will fully answer their purpose; but for linking together city, town, village, and hamlet in the interests of workingmen—in many districts the chief customers—they are almost useless. For this class, wishing to get about quickly—going to and from their daily toil, paying visits to their sporting pals, attending dog shows, football matches, etc., taking their wives and children shopping, and on holidays going some distance afield—a local railway, even if close by, is of little use, with its rigid time-table, its fixed stopping-places, its high fares, and its general formality. What they wanted, and what, until the introduction of electric traction, they waited patiently for, was a service of comfortable cars, that would pass their houses every few minutes, and would take them long stages for, at the utmost, a twopenny fare.

To meet this want, in various parts of rural England, more especially in Staffordshire, horse and steam tramways were tried, but the latter method, from mechanical reasons, proved to be a failure. The rails weighed but 45 lbs. to the yard; they were set in iron chairs and laid on wooden sleepers, and the engines were of the locomotive vertical boiler type. Soon it was found that the weight of the water damaged the locomotive, and the incessant vibration and pounding shook the track so much as to necessitate constant renewal, and the expenditure became so great that many private Steam Tram Companies either wound up, were reconstructed, or were taken over by the local authorities.

Unattractive was the appearance of these old-style tramcars—great cumbersome, top-heavy, two-storied structures, drawn by what looked like a big iron box with a black funnel poking through its lid. They were dirty, they smelt, the service was irregular and slow, and the fares were too high.

Studying an up-to-date map of Great Britain, one is struck by the fact that in the distribution of cities, towns, and villages it resembles the stellar system, with London as the governing central body, while lesser planets, each surrounded by groups of satellites (not very bright ones, it is true), varying in size and importance, represent subordinate star centres. These have grown, and still grow bigger and bigger, the suburbs of a large town reaching out farther and farther until they touch the outskirts of the next town, so that in some districts an overgrowth of houses and factories covers many a square mile.

In the quiet old days that are gone, a working-man, particularly if a weaver, could labour far away in the country in some miniature workshop or in his own little room at home. But for years past he has been compelled to trudge backwards and forwards to some big factory or mill, where steam-power was concentrated, and run upon so economical a principle, that outside of it the individual workman had no chance of gaining even the barest livelihood. With the advent of steam the villages in certain parts of England were abandoned for the town, where clusters of great workshops had sprung up. A new order of things arose, and operatives, if they could, lived within the town boundaries. But as rates, taxes, and rent increased, they concentrated in outlying hamlets, within walking

FIG. 20. VIEW NEAR DUDLEY STATION, SOUTH STAFFORDSHIRE, SHOWING A STEAM TRAM-CARBy permission of theManual of Electrical Undertakings, Ltd., London

FIG. 20. VIEW NEAR DUDLEY STATION, SOUTH STAFFORDSHIRE, SHOWING A STEAM TRAM-CAR

By permission of theManual of Electrical Undertakings, Ltd., London

distance of their work. Thus these hamlets gradually became townlets, and eventually towns, which in their turn developed into centres of industries—lesser lights revolving round the greater.

All over the kingdom manufacturing industries have a natural tendency to settle down in particular localities favoured by the proximity of the raw material, and by railway or water facilities. Thus Dundee, Aberdeen, and the North of Ireland are associated with linen and strong textiles; the Eastern counties and Lincolnshire with agriculture; Warwickshire and Yorkshire with machinery; Burton-on-Trent with beer; Coventry and Nottingham with cycles; and so on. Any intelligent schoolboy could reel off a list of such towns and their products.

Swansea, with its great works for smelting copper and tin ore—the former brought from South Australia, Chili, and Cornwall; the latter from the Straits Settlements and Cornwall—and its manufactories of tin plates, bolts, and zinc goods, is the centre for neighbouring towns associated with its industries, such as Porth, Pontypridd, and Penarth, which, together with the Mumbles, are partially linked together by tramways.

Glasgow, where shipbuilding, armour-plate rolling, and locomotive constructing flourish, has around it the towns of Gourock, Greenock, Rothesay, Coatbridge, and Bridge of Allan, all more or less commercially interested in the great northern city.

Newcastle-on-Tyne and Sunderland, headquarters of England’s shipbuilding, are surrounded by places connected with or engaged in kindred industries, as Tynemouth, Stockton, the Hartlepools, Gateshead, Jarrow, and North and South Shields—the last four practically suburbs of Newcastle—a fine field for electric tramways.

Then in Yorkshire we have such centres of the linen and woollen interests as Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield, Halifax, etc., begirt with townlets which are in process of being interconnected; and further south, in South Lancashire, Burnley, Oldham, Ashton, Blackburn, Preston, Rochdale, Bolton, Manchester, and Liverpool, together with endless smaller places—every one of them engaged in our gigantic cotton trade—cover large thickly populated areas, supplied with tramway means of intercommunication.

A remarkable instance of the localisation of special industries, and of a city begirt with good-sized towns, is to be found in the South Staffordshire Black Country, its central sun being the city of Birmingham. While in the Potteries are a number of small towns almost touching one another—star clusters, destined maybe eventually to coalesce into a single planet of the first magnitude. Here humanity swarms.

Alighting from a train at any wayside station in the South or West of England, if one walks along the main road, and avoids the villages, one may go for miles without meeting a soul. The Londoner, whose nerves have been unstrung and jarred by incessant contact and friction with his fellow-citizens for months at a stretch, has only to journey a few miles, say to Chertsey, Ewell, Epsom, or anywhere in Herts or Surrey, and in a few moments he finds a peaceful solitude not likely to be disturbed save by passing cycles or motor-cars. But in the Midlands, and for that matter anywhere in the North, it is different. There the bulk of Britain’s population is concentrated. One cannot go for a stroll without coming across individuals of all ages, who, although accustomedto see many people, stare at every stranger after a fashion unknown in the home counties, as if he or she were a wanderer from another planet. And should it be a child whose curiosity is thus aroused, he will probably follow the stranger for miles, gaping at nothing!

In the past, the manners and customs of the Black Country folk were decidedly rough, based on the principle of a blow first and an explanation afterwards. But this little trait has, under the modern influence of inter-communication with the outer world, been considerably modified. They work hard and “play” hard, and are given to week-end excursions and an annual “outing” to Blackpool, Southport, Lytham, or other favourite seaside resort. They earn good wages and, if steady, quickly save money and live in comfortable houses of their own; but if otherwise, their “good pay” only accelerates the wretchedness of their surroundings. Lavish with their cash, they are hospitable in the extreme; great consumers of plain beef and mutton, sweets and kickshaws they relegate to the women and children; but they no longer—as was affirmed of puddlers and miners during the boom of many years ago—drink champagne and feed their bull-pups on loin-chops and rump-steak. They are keen on dogs, pigeons, and singing-birds. Dog-fights are a thing of the past, of course, but it is whispered that suspiciously high-bred gamecocks are still to be seen sub-rosa throughout the district!

Altogether they are not half as black as they are painted; neither is the aspect of their country, though except in the neighbourhood of Birmingham it can hardly be called picturesque. They represent the sturdy old Midland English, independent and brusque, whose confidence once gained will not be betrayed.

Here, then, in the country called “Black,” is a concentration of industrial centres, each possessing great natural wealth of coal and iron, and turning out in enormous quantities cutlery, anvils, bolts, buttons, ironwork of all kinds, guns, hinges, locomotives, nails, pens, pins, rails, rifles, screws, tin and zinc-lined goods, tools, tubes, etc.

In its eighty-square-mile area, between Wolverhampton and the headquarters of “Chamberlainism” on the one side, and Stourbridge and Walsall on the other, dwell over a million people, distributed among some twenty-one towns ranging in size and population from Quarry Bank (8,000 inhabitants) to Wolverhampton (94,000), and including such familiar places as Handsworth (38,000), Stourbridge (17,000), Tipton (33,000), Wednesbury (29,000), and West Bromwich (68,000), all busily engaged in the industries before mentioned.

Such in a few words is the Black Country district, which the adjoining Potteries closely resembles. A more promising field for tramway enterprise could hardly exist. No wonder that George Francis Train in 1860 selected North Staffordshire for one of his earliest, though unsuccessful, ventures—a two-mile tramway from Hartley to Burslem, in the very heart of the Potteries.

Subsequently tramway companies came on the scene, with horses and steam traction, and—in one instance—with electricity. There were five distinct enterprises: the South Staffordshire Tramways Company, the Birmingham and Midland Tramways Company, the Dudley and Wolverhampton Tramways Company, the Wolverhampton Tramways Company, and the Dudley, Stourbridge, and District Electric Traction Company (a short line of about four miles).

Not only were these lines entirely separated and disconnected, involving tedious changing of cars, but two of the five were actually of different gauge from the rest, making through communication impossible. It was no system, merely a conglomeration ofdisjecta membra. The tramway condition of the district became thoroughly unsatisfactory, utterly inadequate to the needs of the travelling public. Matters gradually went from bad to worse, and a financial Lord Kitchener was urgently needed to remodel everything.

He appeared in the form of a powerful organisation, the British Electric Traction Company, with a share capital of £4,000,000, which entered into negotiations with the various companies and with the local authorities controlling no fewer than twenty-two districts, into which the Black Country area is divided. The proposition was to combine all the Black Country tramways into one great system to be worked by electricity in the most up-to-date manner, to give frequent service, to ensure rapid and comfortable communication between all parts, to straighten things out well, and to adopt this motto, “One management, one method, one gauge,” provided the local authorities would for some years suspend their rights under the Acts of 1870 and 1896 to buy the tramways for practically the worth of old iron.

Some of the local authorities thought well of it. Others did not, contending that they, and not the Company, ought to undertake the reform; while the rest saddled their adherence to the scheme with such impossible conditions, that the negotiations dragged wearily on, and it was some time before the great scheme was finally carried through at the cost of much trouble with the local authorities in the matter of routes selected for the requisite extensions. In one instance the line, instead

FIG. 21. VIEW AT CASTLE HILL, DUDLEY, SOUTH STAFFORDSHIRE. SHOWING AN ELECTRIC TRAM-CARBy permission of theManual of Electrical Undertakings, Ltd., London.

FIG. 21. VIEW AT CASTLE HILL, DUDLEY, SOUTH STAFFORDSHIRE. SHOWING AN ELECTRIC TRAM-CAR

By permission of theManual of Electrical Undertakings, Ltd., London.

of being carried in the natural way direct to the urban boundaries of a large town, was compelled by the authorities of the area involved to turn off at an angle and to gain access to the town in an utterly roundabout fashion, much as if in London, one was obliged in approaching St. Paul’s by Ludgate Hill to deflect up the Old Bailey, and to reach the cathedral by way of Newgate Street.

One thing only is still wanted to make this Light Railway scheme (typical of other similar ones) perfect, and this is that its cars should have running powers right into Birmingham and other large towns, and it is to be hoped that before this book is published they will be granted. Travellers do not want to change cars when they arrive at the municipal boundary. They want to move from one centre of population to the other, to get in at the Birmingham starting-point, and to get out in the centre of Walsall, West Bromwich, or Wolverhampton, as the case may be, or even to go without changing as far as Kinver, on the edge of the Black Country, a favourite holiday resort hitherto inaccessible to the manufacturing population.

In the North Staffordshire Potteries the British Electric Traction Company has pursued the same policy as in the Black Country with excellent result, as may be judged by the number of passengers in 1901. In the Potteries and the Black Country many millions made use of the tramways, the system throughout being that of the overhead trolley, and the combined length of track about 75 miles.

The whole question of local authority in its relation to rural tramways needs settling on a sound common-sense

FIG. 22. CAMPS BAY, CAPE TOWN, AND SEAPOINT TRAMWAYSBy Permission ofDick Kerr & Co., London.

FIG. 22. CAMPS BAY, CAPE TOWN, AND SEAPOINT TRAMWAYS

By Permission ofDick Kerr & Co., London.

basis, making the requirements of travellers the dominating object to the exclusion of petty differences and local aspirations and jealousy.[7]

If Great Britain is to be networked with these handy means of transport, and the interspaces of town and village bridged over with cobweb lines of trams, an Act of Parliament should settle a universal gauge, and on equitable terms provide for free running powers, whether in town or country, and encourage an interchange of traffic.

It is constantly urged that it is better for cities and great towns to create tramway lines of their own, and work them within their own boundaries, and that the task of dealing with the rural interspaces should be left to the small towns and areas, and not to private enterprise. The opponents of this principle argue that one great objection to municipal trams is that they are compelled to work within artificial local boundaries, and that there are grave drawbacks to municipal trading in any form. As to the interspaces, to work them by themselves would never pay, and any interspaced tramway system would be almost useless without intimate connection with urban centres as feeders, which is only obtainable by the uniform control afforded under joint stock enterprise. Besides—say the objectors to municipal or rural council control—if private working is the most economical way of running tramways in interspaces, it should be still more economical in towns.

Surely, therefore, there would be no hardship in restricting the development of urban and rural tramways to local authorities wielding power over areas of a certain size and importance, and the loss to small communities of the power of objection or veto to large schemes ought not to be felt by them. They and the landowners should take warning from the history of railways, and encourage in every way the introduction and extension of tramways, which in remote districts would vastly relieve the tedium of existence, enabling labourers and others to temporarily exchange some dull little village for the comparatively lively market town at a nominal cost. Whereas, in many instances, instead of welcoming this herald of a brighter and less monotonous life, too often is repeated the scene immortalised inPunchsome years ago. A brickfield: “Bill, who’s that chap?” “Do’ant know. A stranger, I should think.” “Then heave ’arf a brick at his ’ed.”

Capitalists should be encouraged to embark in tramway enterprises that are bound to be beneficial to everybody, and in which they would be entitled to a fair return of interest; for truly the labourer is worthy of his reward.

“Through the faithless excavated soilSee the unweary’d Briton delves his way.”Blackmore.

HITHERTO we have been considering Metropolitan Electric Railways constructed at considerable depths below the surface, or lifted up on high, as at the Liverpool Docks.

There is another system, however, and one that is strongly advocated by the London County Council, at present chiefly as a means of linking together existing tram lines by taking the cars underground through congested areas and bringing them to the surface again where the traffic is less dense.

In its ever-increasing congested condition, London reminds us of a patient afflicted with dropsy of long standing, susceptible to occasional alleviation, but hopelessly incurable. In Tudor, Stuart, and Hanoverian days the town gave no signs of this malady; but with Queen Victoria’s reign the germs of it became evident, and now the giant city lies prostrate in a state of helplessness that has baffled the most skilful engineering physicians, whose remedies, trains and trams and tubes, have been successful only in giving temporary relief to the sufferer, who forthwith resumes and even increases his original bulk.

For ages the ocean, without breaking its bounds, has absorbed the rivers and streams running into it; but imagine the process reversed, and the English and Irish Channels and the North Sea unrestrictedly pouring their torrents into the Thames, the Forth, or the Liffey! Only one result could ensue. The channels thus gorged with water, their currents would cease to flow. A similar fate threatens London, into whose narrow and inelastic fairways an Atlantic of traffic is ever pouring. One day the current will be unable to flow, and there will be a permanent condition of “block.” Then, and only then, perhaps, will a partial migration of town to country bring about a more natural state of things, and save this colossal city from utter collapse.

These shallow tramways of the London County Council are a novelty in England, but on a large scale have been successfully adopted in Paris, Buda-Pesth, Boston, and New York. At present the shallow subway which the Council has been authorised to construct at a total cost of £279,000, commences at Theobald’s Road, Holborn, where it forms a junction with an existing surface tramway, the property of the Council. Thence the line falls in level, until, in Southampton Row, it runs beneath the street, whence, in a trench of inconsiderable depth, it passes along the new thoroughfare, Kingsway, from Southampton Row to the new Strand crescent, Aldwych. There it turns towards the Embankment, on gaining which near Waterloo Bridge it again comes out to the surface. In its total length of about five-eighths of a mile it has four stations. Its motive power is electricity on the underground conduit third rail system. The cars, running singly, and at frequent intervals, are single-decked. It claims for its principle that the station platforms are readily accessible, sothat instead of having to descend a great number of steps, or to enter a lift to reach the cars, passengers arrive there by means of a short well-lighted stairway; that the ventilation of the tunnels is perfect, and the speed of the cars equal to that of the trains, and as they run singly and close together, long waits are avoided, and thus they are specially suited for short-distance travelling. It also claims a general immunity from vibration.

To thoroughly understand how a complete system of shallow underground works we must go abroad to Paris, Buda-Pesth, Boston, and New York. I may remark that in describing this system a certain amount of repetition is inevitable.

Paris has its “Twopenny Tube,” or rather its equivalent. On July 30th, 1900, Londoners for the first time travelled by a deep-level line from the City to Shepherds Bush, a distance of 5·77 miles; and a few days earlier, on the 19th of the same month, the Electrical Chemin de Fer Métropolitain de Paris—the main channel of an elaborate system that links together every district of the capital—was opened for traffic. This chief artery connects at the fortifications, the Porte Maillot with the Porte de Vincennes, a distance of 6·6 miles. In other words, it crosses Paris diagonally from north-west to south-east; from a point at the north of the Bois de Boulogne to another at the north of the Bois de Vincennes; the eighteen stations (including terminals) on the main line being Porte Maillot, Rue D’Obligado, Place de L’Etoile (Arc de Triomphe), Avenue de L’Alma, Rue Marbœuf, Champs Elyseés, Place de la Concorde, Tuileries, Palais Royal, Louvre, Châtelet,Hotel de Ville, St. Paul, Place de la Bastille, Gare de Lyons, Rue de Reuilly, Place de la Nation, and Porte de Vincennes.

On the Métropolitain there is a three-minutes’ service of trains during the day, and a six-minutes’ service at night. On the London Tube the intervals vary from two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half minutes in the day, while at night they are the same as in Paris, both railways being open for some twenty hours out of the twenty-four.

In Paris two classes of passengers are provided for: first and second. The former are called upon to pay 2½d., the latter 1½d., for any length of journey. Up to nine a.m., second-class, or workmen’s tickets, are issued for 2d., the return half being available for the remainder of the day.

Thus, as regards date of opening, length of line, service of trains, and average fares, there is a close similarity between the English and French lines; but the system is widely different. In London we burrow deep; in Paris they go just beneath the surface, the authorities after much hesitation having adopted the shallow underground system. Our Tube trains are shot through huge iron pipes penetrating the subsoil at depths varying from sixty to a hundred feet, and to get at the rail level, passengers must take a perpendicular journey in a big lift. But their Parisian counterparts trip down a few steps and along a brightly-lighted, white-tiled tunnel, so beautifully ventilated and smokeless—electricity being the motive power—that an enthusiastic expert declares its atmosphere to be “perfectly clean and sweet.” The tunnels are as near the surface as possible, and on the greater part of the line the keystones of the masonry arches are only about 3 feet 6 inches below thestreet level. The excavations were at first attempted by means of shields, as in “tubular” work; but this had to be abandoned in favour of the time-honoured “cut and cover” plan employed in the construction of our early underground railway.

When the great Parisian scheme is completed upon a twentieth-century model, much more finished and convenient in many ways than any of ours in London, it will comprise a total length of 38·86 miles of track, seven-tenths being laid in shallow covered trenches, the remainder in open cuttings or on viaducts, the entire cost being estimated at twelve million sterling. An interesting feature of the scheme is that each section is self-contained and ends in loops, so that shunting is obviated. No trains run from any one distant strip of line into another, but where there are crossings, or where the termini touch, there are stations to facilitate changing. This arrangement ensures a rapid service, maintained with regularity and punctuality on each section. Like our “Tube,” the success of the Parisian Métropolitain was from the first immense, and at the end of ten months showed a return of over forty million passengers.

Along the Boulevard Andrassy at Buda-Pesth there is a shallow electric tramway built upon similar principles, a few feet under the main thoroughfare, which is by no means a failure, financially or otherwise.

Now let us cross the Atlantic, and note what has been effected at Boston and New York.

The former—the picturesque old-world capital of the State of Massachusetts, with its population of over amillion—is familiarised to every schoolboy who knows anything of history and the War of Independence, with the city where the tea was thrown into the harbour by Colonials disguised as Mohawks, an incident that indirectly brought about the creation of the United States. It is a city also sacred to literati as being the home of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and is so old-fashioned—or so excessively up-to-date, whichever you please—that, until recently, neither cabs, omnibuses, tubes, or underground railways were to be found within its boundaries. What with the uneven surface and the labyrinth of the streets, Boston is picturesque in spite of itself, and its old buildings emphasize this. There are the two New England meeting-houses. The “Old South” has been proudly preserved in its ancient state, although the ground on which it stands is almost as valuable as that in the City of London. Architecturally, it is a brick barn, with a pretentiously ugly steeple. “Old North” has an equally plain body, but from its steeple, as a tablet affixed to it sets forth, “the signal lantern of Paul Revere warned the country of the march of the British troops to Lexington and Concord.” King’s Chapel, another ecclesiastical antiquity of Boston, was, for a quarter of a century after 1749, the place of worship of the official British colony, and accordingly became an eyesore to the earnest puritanical Bostonians.

But Boston cannot, like Charlestown, South Carolina, boast of a St. Michael’s Church, famous for its beautiful steeple, so greatly resembling that of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields as to suggest that probably they were both designed by the same architect, Gibbs, one of Wren’s pupils.

In the Act passed by the State Legislature authorising the construction of the Boston subway, it wasstipulated that its length should be some five miles, and its total cost not more than one and a half million pounds sterling.

The construction of the subway was begun at the Public Gardens, where an incline, a hundred yards long, carries the surface lines into the tunnel, passing under the edge of Boston Common to Tremont Street. It is joined by a branch subway from Pleasant Street, where another incline leads to the surface. From this junction the subway proceeds beneath the Tremont Street side of the Common to Park Street, which is the central point of the system. Thence it is carried directly beneath Tremont Street to Scollay Square, and by means of a bifurcation under Hanover Street on the one hand and Cornhill on the other to a junction under Washington Street. The tunnel continues under Washington Street to Haymarket Square, and immediately rises by an incline to Causeway Street, where it connects with both the surface and the elevated lines. Wherever possible, the subway was carried out by open excavations, and, as in the Paris Métropolitain, by the old-fashioned “cut and cover” method. The roof of the tunnel is generally about three feet below the surface, though in some places considerably lower. At and near the stations the subway sides are lined with white glazed bricks, whitewash being used elsewhere.

There are five stations in the Boston shallow underground, viz. at Boylston Street, Park Street, Adams Square, Scollay Square, and Haymarket Square. These are approached by short stairways, protected from the weather by neat clock-surmounted kiosks, or small iron structures, in shape resembling our cab shelters, and placed at convenient points, either on the sidewalks or—where there is sufficient width—in the centre of the

FIG. 23. BOSTON SUBWAY, SHOWING ENTRANCE AT THE PUBLIC GARDENSBy permission of theLondon County Council

FIG. 23. BOSTON SUBWAY, SHOWING ENTRANCE AT THE PUBLIC GARDENS

By permission of theLondon County Council

roadway. Passengers can thus, by about twenty-five steps, go to and from the platforms in a few seconds. The ticket-offices are at the bottom of the stairways. The passenger returns at Park Street (the busiest station) are among the largest in the world, being 28,000,000 per annum.

The Boston surface street cars adopt the overhead trolley principle of electric traction, and the elevated railway-cars the third rail system, both these systems being continued throughout the subway.

The subway is illuminated electrically, but a considerable amount of natural light is also obtained, especially at the stations; and Captain Piper, deputy of the New York Police, when on a visit to London last February, discussing the question of ventilation in tube railways, gave it as his opinion that the freshest air he had “struck” in an underground railway was at Boston. “The air,” he said, “is excellent.”

The subway is, of course, perfectly clean, smokeless, and comparatively quiet; neither in the streets can any noise be heard from the cars that are continually passing close beneath. By an extension of the subway under Boston harbour, the surface lines in the district of East Boston are connected with the main system, thus making the entire length eight miles of single track.

In New York, after much careful consideration of the advantages and disadvantages of deep tunnels (tubes) and shallow railways, the Rapid Transit Commissioners decided upon the latter as being likely to give the best facilities for quick travelling. On account of its peculiar peninsular shape, admitting of extension in one direction

FIG. 24. NEW YORK SUBWAY IN COURSE OF CONSTRUCTION. CAR TRAFFIC MAINTAINEDBy permission of theLondon County Council

FIG. 24. NEW YORK SUBWAY IN COURSE OF CONSTRUCTION. CAR TRAFFIC MAINTAINED

By permission of theLondon County Council

only, the problem of transportation in the Empire City is comparatively easy, the routes being straight, and no necessity existing for intercommunication as in London. But, on the other hand, the number of persons to be carried morning and evening is greater.

Instead of the arched roof and masonry side-walks of the ordinary underground, there is a rectangular structure with a framework of steel beams riveted together, concrete enclosing the erection completely at the top and sides, and forming the bottom, rows of steel columns helping to support the roof between the tracks—in other words, a kind of Britannia Bridge let into the surface of the earth. The line has four tracks, the two centre ones being reserved for an express service (30 miles an hour), with stations 1½ miles apart. On the other tracks the stations are closer together, about four to the mile. So that there are two kinds of stations; one with platforms on the outside of the outer (or slow) track (at which only local trains stop), and another with platforms for fast trains only, and island platforms for either local or express trains. At the former stations the subway is sufficiently deep to allow of a bridge over the entire four tracks, with staircases leading to the various platforms. By means of loops, and, in places, by the lowering of the express track beneath the local tracks, crossings and switchings at the termini are, as in the Paris Métropolitain, eliminated, and the cars run continuously without any shunting whatever.

Its general scheme is as follows. Starting with a loop round the General Post Office, a four-track route is taken direct to the Grand Central Station in 42nd Street. It then turns west along 42nd Street to Broadway, and proceeds under Broadway to 104th Street, a distance of seven miles. Here the four tracks divide, a

FIG. 25. NEW YORK SUBWAY, SHOWING HOW IT WAS BUILTBy permission of theLondon County Council

FIG. 25. NEW YORK SUBWAY, SHOWING HOW IT WAS BUILT

By permission of theLondon County Council

double track continuing along Broadway to Kingsbridge, and another double track going in an easterly direction under the Harlem river to the Bronx district. Each of these branches is seven miles long, making a total length, for the whole system, of twenty-one miles, seven being for four track and fourteen for double track. The northerly ends of the double-track line are on the surface for a combined distance of about five miles, the remainder being shallow underground. At convenient points inclines lead to the surface from the subway, and are linked to street trams and elevated railroads. Electricity is exclusively used for traction and lighting, and the cost of the entire scheme was originally estimated at £7,000,000.

Now, what is the conclusion to be come to as to the adaptability of the shallow underground system to our vast metropolis, whose station at Liverpool Street is the busiest in the world, with its “turnover” of forty-five millions of passengers per annum; St. Lazare, at Paris, coming next with forty-three millions?

In newly-constructed thoroughfares provision for shallow subways, and for sewers, pipes, cables, etc., can be easily made; but in old-established streets the difficulty and expense in making them would be formidable, as vaults and cellars used for business purposes frequently extend right across the narrow carriage-ways, and a perfect network of conduits would have to be displaced and moved either below or alongside the subway.

Some idea of the cost of interfering with sewers may be gathered by the fact that in constructing the New York subway an entirely new outfall sewer, over six feet in diameter, had to be built one mile in length! On the other hand, labour is cheaper in this countrythan in America, and in London there is no rock to be removed as in New York.

In conclusion, I would quote from the report of Lieutenant-Colonel Yorke, who was sent over to Paris two or three years ago by the Board of Trade to inspect the Métropolitain. He thinks that as regards convenience for passengers and economy of working, the balance of advantage lies with the shallow tunnel or subway as compared with the deep-level tube. But he hesitates a little when confronted with the thought of what would happen to London while its roadways were in process of being undermined. The difficulties in the way of adopting the subway would, he says, be great, though he does not emphatically declare that he considers them prohibitive; and he approves of the attempt made to introduce the system in the manner adopted by the London County Council beneath the new street between Holborn and the Strand.

“Cars without horses will go.”—Mother Shipton.

THE above prediction, constantly quoted at the advent of railways, is being realised with the utmost exactness. Except the late craze for cycling, nothing is more remarkable than the boom in the motor-car.

Prior to the passing of the “Locomotives on Highways Act” in 1896, motoring was an impossibility. Even then its advance was slow, and until about three years ago motor-cars were decidedly unpopular. The London street boys—miniature representatives of public opinion—derided them, and, with their usual fiendish lack of sympathy, rejoiced when they came to grief; while ’bus-drivers and cabmen ironically likened all automobiles to traction engines, cherishing the delusion that they continually broke down, cost a small fortune to maintain, and, worse than all, dislocated every bone in their occupants’ bodies.

This contempt reached a climax when certain lemon-coloured electric cabs were seen plying for hire, ugly to look at and limited in speed; while simultaneously a line of steam omnibuses, so cumbersome and weighty

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