The age-herald., 1898-03-12

IS thls all The London and Southwestern
 have just completed 8 tunnel under the
 Thames, from Waterloo station which will,
 by an electrical subway. land their pas
 sengers at the Mansion house. Thus we
 ma all these great railways, in addition to
 the underground railways, the tramways,
 the omnibuses and other vehicles and the
 million or more day who come into the
 city on foot, pouring Into London it's hunr
 dreds of millions of people. May we not
 ask was there ever such a problem pre-
 sented in the history of the world as that
 of the safe and rapid handling of this
 mighty stream of humanity, who on foot
 and by railways, on street cars and omni-
 buses and on water-for some come on the
 Thames steamboats-make their ga,y daily
 to the great centre of modern business and
 return at night to their homes. The popu-
 lation within the radius thus drawn upon
 by all these combined methods of convey
 ances, including the intra-eounty traffic, is
 not far from ten millions of fairly prosper-
 ous people.
 With a system that at the best does not
 come within O0O0O,OOO per annum of sup
 plying the constantly increasing wants of
 the community it is not surprising that in
 London we find at the present time vari-
 ous projects on foot for the relief of It's
 congested streets. Some years ago par
 liamentary commission considered and re-
 ported favorably upon six new schemes
 of transportation, namely, the Great
 Northern and City Railway, which had
 for it's object the relief of the growing local passenger traffic of the Great Western
 line and to afford 1t new and direct &C., cess to the city; the City and South London
 Electric Underground has been opened for several years, but its extension to Clapham and also further extension into the heart of the city of London will add greatly to its importance; the Central London railway, which takes a direct cut fifty feet below the Snrfpca from the Mansion house tO Shepherds Bush is now in course of com pletion, and if successful, will aid mate rially in reducing the traffic, say, from the Marble Arch to the Royal Exchange, via Oxford street, Holborn and Chesa- peake; the Waterloo and City Electric rail- way, which has been promoted as mem toned above by the present enterprising management of the Southwestern railway company, and though less than two miles, will enable passengers landing at Water loo Station to reach the Mansion house via the tunnel, which runs under the Thames in five minutes. The report in question also had under consideration the Baker Street and Waterloo railways and the Hampstead St. Pancras and Charing Cross railways. Nor does this end the list. An electric underground line is now proposed from Charing Cross to Padding ton, and application for a private bill has been deposited. Another projected line is the New Cross and Waterloo line between three and four miies long. There is also talk of line from Brixton to the city another from Earl's court to the city, an- other between Bow and Whitechapel and probably the list might be still further ex- tended. These facts, however, suffice to It purports to show the railways existing success of electrical engineering has made It possible to take care of this vast and in- creasing street traffic in London by prac- ticaiiy duplicating fifty feet below the sur face in the most populous part of the city a ilxxrpx ,;ol,,, almost every entrance into London
 The London county council has just com p'eted and published a map of Lca1don whlch, Tn many respects, Is the most in tereSting work of the kind in existence It purports to show the railways existing and authorized. canals and navigation tramways, omnibus and steamboat routes In the county of London and extra London It likewise gives these several authorized but not completed railways. On this map you may follow the black Hines and note the termintn of all the great railway sys- tems of England. You may trace in the orange lines the circuitous routes of the London omnibus, still the favorite means of street locomotion. The straight blue lines which come down to the water's edge on the south side of the Thames reach no nearer the city than Hammersmith on the west and Kentish Town on the northwest denote the tramway routes. The more nu- merouS red lines also leave the London as we know it, alone, and are tramway and omnibus routes used in common. A glance at this map also indicates how rapidly underground London is extending and suggests that if the present plans are successful the time may come when the traffic of the thousand millions will be divided between the surface and under ground methods of transit. The new cleo tric underground railways in London and the important engineering in connection therewith are of practical value to the United States, because it is extending a line of industries in which we are admitted ly in the lead. The fact that in London there will soon be 500000,000 passengers awaiting adequate methods of rapid trans | portation to and from their homes suggests | a field of enterprise in which we are fully | equipped to embark. In visiting twenty | five large European cities last year I found | that in nearly all the really important and up-to-date rapid transit schemes Ameri- l cans directly or indirectly figured.