Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1903-12-07

mated at S5O,OO0,OOO though probably
contracts for only a small part OF this
are reacy now. The railroad thought
it a great hardship when hOld-up in
the New York council caused it to
spend a year getting permission TO go
ON with this enormous work. But the
effect of that delay has been to carry
it over the crest of the boom period
and out Of the zone of hold-up strikes.
Ircn is cheaper and labor must be
cheaper soon. On a work so eX-
tensive and likely to continue for so
many years, the company ought TO get
pretty good bids next month. II viii
be a tremendous advantage if this in
vestment. which will carry fixed
charges indefinitely, can be made at
reduced cost in a time of slight de
preston.
There has been a good deal of talk
about this enormous enterprise; but
we imagine that few people have
grasped its full magnitude either as an
engineering work or as a solution OF
a great transportation problem. New
York is inaccessible except by water
to direct approach from the west and
south, directions from which the
heaviest and most rapidly increasing
freight and passenger traffic comes.
Exports and imports, millions of an
nual visitors to New York and millions
of travellers from Europe, have TO be
ferried over the Hudson at the begin
ming or the end of their journey.
Moreover, Long Island, the natural
place for the residence expansion of
the metropolis, is cut OF by a broader
river and has been sOrely neglected
in development of suburban traffic.
One railroad has mOnopOlized it in the
old, sluggish, public-be-damned
fashion.
The Pennsylvania company has
bought the Long Island road and will
make suburban development of the
whole island part of its extensive sys-
tenn of underground construction. The
tunnel that will take its railroad under
the Hudson into New York will travel
on under New York, under the East
river and part CT Brooklyn, coming up
far enough out to connect with sys-
tenn of suburban lines spreading all
over the island. The tunnel will be
six miles long, from the point where
it pIunges under the low range of
hills along the Hudson to the point
where it comes out in the middle OF
Brooklyn. 1t will be an ordinary arch
tunnel through the rock of the Jersey
shore and Manhattan island. Through
the mud and slit under the two rivers
it will be two metal tubes lined and
surrounded by concrete, like those
now building for trolley cars under
these same two rivers and described in
this place two or three weeks ago. To
bear the heavier traffic of great rail
road, these tubes, floating in the mud
under the river, viii be supported on
rows of cement pillars, made by screw
ing hollow cylinders down into the
mud under them and filling them with
concrete.
In the middle of Manhattan island
the two tunnels from either direction
will rise to a splendid underground
passenger station that will occupy
four blocks and cost s1O,OOO,OOO. This
is the most costly and extensive ter
minal work ever undertaken by any
American corporation, but the tremen-
dous possibilities of traffic develop
ment, where 100000 people are
gathered within a radius Of ten miles,
make it look like rather a conserva-
tive enterprise after all.