The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1892-09-16

addition it had to spend SOC, 00) to put
the Washington street tunnel in 1T
condition. 1t is now building a new
tunnel at Van ,Buren street, also lead
ing to the West side.
The West side system embraces two
main cable lines, one on Madison street
running due west to West Fortieth
street, the other on Milwaukee avenue,
running northwest. Two more lines
via Halsted street and Blue Island ave-
nue. have been completed and VIII be
mt in operation as soon as the Van
Buren, street tunnel is finished. The
North side system has two main lines
that are cabled, namely on Clark and
Wells street, each branching of into
two lines further north, the Clark street
line having an offshoot in the Lincoln
avenue cable, the Wells street line IN
the Clybourn avenue cable. The main
lines have numerous feeders" in the
form of horse car lines whose ears are
in most cases coupled on as "trallers
after the grip cars.
The North side syst EN- covers mile
age of over eighty miles. The mileage
of the West side system can never be
given accurately, as there are extern
sions in course of construction all the
time at the rate of ten or twelve miles
year.
One of the most interesting things
about the West side cables is the per-
feet system OF signaling and the
wreckage and fire wagons. The grip
man on u car can signal the power
house by an electric arrangement
from any part of the road, and 4
patrol wagon with crew and tools is
at hand in q few minutes TO remove
distractions. This wagon carries
everything necessary to pull OFF the
most common obstruction, which is
I coal wagon or other heavily-loaded
vehicle that breaks down or loses a
wheel in the tracks. In addition the
company has wagon that appears in
/ case of n fire to prevent traffic being
| stopped by the hose of the fire depart
mcnt. This wagon puts up IN few
minutes a fire bridge" that is a sup
/ port for the hose. which can thus be
/ led across the street at a sufficient
height to allow the cars to pass under it
/ With all these perfect arrangements
there is one serious drawbacks to Chi
cago's street car system: There are no
cross town lines. From the business
center the city extends in three diff
| ferent directions, forming the North.
! West and South divisions. Each of
/ these divisions used TO be controlled
and all the street cars in it operated by
one company until the West and North
divisions were combined under one
company by the Philadelphia syndi-
cate Neither company would suffer
another to enter its territory and the
result was that while it was easy to
reach the business center from any out
lying point, there was practically no
connection between the several divis-
ions directly. This condition OF
things still continues. Some improve
ments have been made in connecting
the North and West divisions by horse
cars, but they remain imperfect as yet
II one wants to reach a point in an
other division of the city, starting from
an outlying point in one division he
generally has to come clear down town
and then start for the other division,
taking two lines of cars. This is one
of the peculiar results of the peculiar
conditions of the development of this
city. In the course of time the city is
bound to outgrow this legacy of its
childhood. II. E. o. HEISEMANN.