Palestine daily herald. [volume] (Palestine, Tex.) 1902-1949, 1909-07-17
TUNNEL IS COMPLETED
South Tubes of the Hudson and Man.
haitian Railroad Company Will
BE Opened Monday
Herald Snecial.l


New York, July 1.-THE south
tubes of the Hudson and Manhattan
Railroad company, commonly known
as the McAdoo tunnels, running under
the North river from the Hudson Ter
minal Buildings, Manhattan, to the
Pennsylvania railroad station, Jersey
City, will be opened to traffic Mon
day. The entire tunnel system, from
the Hudson Terminal Buildings to the
Pennsylvania, Erie and Lackawanna
railroad stations, will be completed
and ready for operation on that day,
but failure on the part of the car
builders to deliver sufficient equip
ment makes it possible to operate
then only that portion of the line
from the Hudson Terminal Buildings
to the Pennsylvania railroad station
The opening of the tunnels and the
completion of the S60,000,0GO system,
which has been in course of construc-
ton internationally since 1874, will
be signalized by fitting celebration.
Jersey City will be the scene of the
principal celebration. When the first
train starts on its trip Jerseyward
Monday afternoon with the tunnel day
guests as passengers twenty dyna-
mite bombs will be exploded high in
the air over the Pennsylvania railroad
ferry house. Then every locomotive
and factory whistle in the lower part
of the town will be expected to get
busy and every ferry and tug boat
on the river will join in the racket.
The opening of the south tunnels
marks the practical completion of
the McAdoo system, which has been
frequently adjudged to be the great
est and most costly engineering feat
of the century, as well as the most
comprehensive traffic arrangement
ever devised. The project for the
tunnels to connect New York and
New Jersey underneath the Hudson
river was first preached in 1874. De
Witt Clinton Haskin, civil engineer
of California, who has been active in
the construction of the Union Pacific |
railroad, drew the plans and made
the surveys at his own expense.
Starting at Fifteenth street, Jersey
City, one hundred feet inside the
river bulkhead, he began his first
bore. The work was soon stopped by |
an Injunction obtained by the Lacka- |
wanna railroad. A few years later the
litigation was settled and Haskin's |
son succeeded in pushing it on until |
in 1880, when some 1000 feet of the
tunnel had been completed, the COM
pany failed The work was abandon
ed for ten years until Pearson and
Son, the great English contracting
firm, and Sir John Fowler and Sir
Benjamin Baker, who built the bridge
across the Forth in Scotland, be-
came interested in the project and
took 1t up again. Two years later the
company again failed.
The work was revived in short
time, but it was not until William G
McAdoo, young lawyer, took hold
Of the enterprise and organized the
Hudson and Manhattan company that
i was successfully carried on. The
McAdoo system comprises four tun-
mes under the Hudson. The two
north tubes were opened last year.
And while this network of tunnels
that connects New Jersey with New
York, and which penetrates all over
Manhattan Island, is wonderful
piece of engineering, the Terminal
Buildings, the great structure into
which all of these tunnels terminate,
is one of the marvels of the age. The
structure consists of two buildings
on Church street, from Cort-
landt to Dey streets and from Dey to
Fulton. The buildings are % stories
high above the surface and extend rs
feet below the surface to bed rock
Beneath these buildings is located
the great terminal station, where 1885,
600 passengers will be. discharged
every morning during the rush hours,
and where a like number will take |
the tunnel trains every night to re-
turn to their New Jersey homes.
The Terminal Buildings constitute
the largest office structure in the