The Yazoo sentinel. (Yazoo City, Miss.) 1878-1916, 1891-09-24

open for traffic. The tracks % the old
horse Cur road had to bc shifted bodily
over 10 the sides and the cars kept NOV
ing. This. alone, was about Equivalent
70 building from the beginning an entire
/ ly new double track horse car railway
line. and that. too, in very cramPea
quarters and with the traffic Of one Of
the busiest streets In the world surging
about the workmen az every step, Then
the sidewalks must be kept clear, and
rallied and solid board crossings az every
intersected street maintained, and both
sides OF the trench carefully guarded aud
6bStructed day and night 70 keep people
aud horses from tamhling in.
Now, all 81 this stupendous task was
merely incidental and preliminary q the
real work in hand, which was building
the cable road. The measured distance
of the line from the South Ferry to
Fifty-niath street. is 3 l1-lO0 miles, and
when the cable road is completed, the
road itself will be n solid compact mass
If cement iron and steel 3 1900 miles
long, set in an excavation 10 feet wide
by from feet deep at the yokes %
feet at the manholes. There would be
nothing in the world to prevent your TAX
ing hold of tho South Ferry end of il and
lifting il up bodily and standing i up
right as sort of Eiffel tower II would
not be apt TO break In respect 10 solid
ity, in fact, the Broadway cable road,
when 1t is completed, win hardly have an
equal in the world.
The iron skeleton on which the tracks
rest is set in solid cement made in the
proportion of one part Of Portland
cement to three parts OF sand and five
parts of broken stone, the stone reduced
in size so each piece can pass through a
81 inch iron ring, and not through Q Il
inch ring. This concrete surrounding
the conduit is inches thick The yokes,
as the oddly-shaped iron frames which
are put down at every interval of AZ feet
are called, rest in concrete foundations
As inches long, Is inches wide and q
inches deep.
These yokes weigh $50 pounds each,
and between the South Ferry and Fifty
ninth street about 1000 of them will be
used, making total weight Of this form
of iron alone Of something like LOO
tons. These yokes are made in Spring
field, o., and are after special design
made for the Broadway road. A yoke
was at first ordered of lighter build,
and, after about $4,000 worth of them
had been made and delivered, il was de-
cided to adopt the heavier pattern, so that
| the old ones are now stored away, to be
sold for old iron, unless somebody wants
to buy them for another cable road s0mo-
where
When the road is in operation two dis
tinct cables will be carried in the con-
J duit, but as rule but one viii be in OPP
Grafton at a time, the other being held in
reserve in case Of accidents, with the car
grip so arranged that il can be changed
from one cable TO the other at will. The
strain on each cable when in use will be
about $4,000 pounds and nm average Of
1000 horse power will be required to op.
crate the whole road, although
three times that power viii FL
held in reserve to be summon
of emergency. The eables
inch and half thick andw
small wires in the usual way
1 ibility.
One of the great studies OF theQsa
ton Of the cable Is to avoid friction A
very slight touching at any point will
speedily destroy cable. An instance
of the tremendous effect of this slight
friction was not long ago shown in 125th
street. Here the cable actually cut
straight through a Croton water pipe,
although it apparently barely skinned
its surface For this reason the utmost
care is taken to keep the cable clear at
all points. This is amatter Of very
nice calculation at curves, as indeed is
the entire construction Of cable road at
these points. The sharpest curve in the
Broadway line will be the nearly right
angle at Fourteenth street and Broad
way. With this exception the line is re-
markably free from departures from a
straight track as compared with many
other roads.
In operating the road. the first cable
Y loop will extend from Houston street 70
the Battery and back, total distance Of
424-1O0 miles, and to a sheave-pit be-
tween Thirty-sixth and Thirty-sevcnth
streets and back, total Of 96-100
miles. From the power station at fifty
first street single loop will extend
south to the Thirty-sixth street sheave-
pit and north to Fifty-ninth street and
return, a total 2 24-100 miles. The
cable draws will be ~ feet in
diameter. This makes total Of a
trife less than 103 miles Of cable, which
will be in constant use all the time. In
addition to this there viii be the second
cable of the same length lying in the
conduit beside the one in operation,
making total Of twenty-one miles Of
wire rope, which must be in the conduit
and adjusted before the road can begin
business.-LNew York Evening Sun.