The times., 1899-06-12
LoNDoN's BUSIEST SPOT.
excavations for the Central station
os Three Tunnel Ronds.
From the London Daily News)

! (From the London DaiIy Negs1
! That marvellous piece of engineering
work down under the roadway at the Man
sion House is just approaching the close
! OF one very important stage though the
| whole work will certainly not be finished
till November, and perhaps not then. Any-
| body privileged to so down below ther1
cannot fail TO be amazed that it should
have been found possible to do what has
/ been done while the full tide of London
/ traffic has been going on just overhead.
/ When they began work here the whole OF
/ the great expanse of roadway had a solid
! earth foundation, except that the ground
was ramified By an astonishing tangle of
/ all sorts of pipes. ranging from the o,d
wooden water pipes of a past age up TO
I hydraulic mains and the pneumatic tubes.
/ Now the space down below the road is
another world of gloomy galleries and i'm
! penetrable voids, dimly illumined by cleo
/ trio glow lamps and peopled by whole
| host of dusky gnomes. who still seem to
! be wriggling their way down into the bow
/ els Of the earth.
There is a great circular gallery run
/ ming all around just under the road. and
| from this passages shoot off in various di-
rections, upward and downward Under
I meath this is corresponding gallery in
| which the various services-gas, water,
u
! graph and teiephones-have all been re-
! duced from the chaos to orderly system,
and lie there in the gloom very impressive
! ly suggestive of the veins and arteries
| through which are rushing the life cur
! rents and nervous pulsations of the tre
mendous world whose dull echoes roll sui
! lenly through the weird obscurity-
! The great space in the centre Of these
! two subterranean galleries seems still to
| ba n IN
penetrabie mystery of glowing lights and
! dark shadows. steel girders and brick
walls and dusky figures that look to be
! hopelessly laboring to evolve order out OF
/ the confusion. The booking Office of the
| Central London Railway will be here, and
4 from the thick of the disorder, black. I'M
fathomable shafts drop down perpendie-
ularly to the railway platforms below. In
these shafts will probably run up and down
/ the five hydraulic lifts that will carry up
and down ninety or a hundred people at
a time.
The roadway, which formerly was solid,
| is now nearly all of it supported on steel
| girders. and what remains temporarily
| propped up on balks of timber and brick
| walls will in the course of two or three
! weeks get its steel beams underneath 1t
and the timber and the bricks will be
knocked away There will be a mass OF
concrete laid above the girders and when
that has had four or five days to dry and
| harden asphalt will cover 1t all. The work
I has been done in ten or eleven sections,
/ and only one of these sections has now to
be DONE and this most difficult and troub-
| lesome engineering feet will have been got
safely through.
| There will never again be any need to
break up the roadway between the Bank
and the Mansion House, and probably be-
fore the end of the year there will be
I light and convenient subway all round this
busy space to be reached by a short fight
OF steps from either of the street corners.
The South London Electric Railway. and
/ the City and Waterloo will have direct
communication with the subway by slopes.
1t is interesting TO learn that the whole
of the great and intricate system Of steel
! girders and pillars upon which the road
| way at the Mansion House is being laid
| has already been erected experimentally
| in a field at Derby. The business having
4 been thus rehearsed, as it were, the whole
/ fabric has been brought section by section
| and put here in the heart of London II
seems probable that the extensive obstruc-
tion on the pavement in front OF the Royal
| Exchange will not be cleared away till
/ toward this time next wear.