The Birmingham age-herald., 1910-11-26
GREAT STATION IS ID OPEN TOMORROW Pennsylvania Largest of Kind
 in World ENGINEERING MARVEL Two Birmingham Trains Nill Enter and Leave This Great Structure
 DaiIy-Description of the
 Undertaking
ENGINEERING MARVEL

building of which is the engineering
 marvel of the age.
 The station Is the costliest railroad q
 building in the world and has wealth cred three panics in its creation. Local
 of two local lines will enter and leave from this marvellous structure. l The Pennsylvania railroad officials are planning to make the first train leaving the station an event. Inasmuch as the entire country is interested in the opening tomorrow President Me Rea and a score of railroad officials will take part in the inauguration.
 H. B. Rox. local agent for the com pany, who was recently placed here, gave out some information yesterday l in regard to the opening. He said 1 sch edules would be regular after the l first train and that the best of Penn 1 sylvania service would be afforded. In l talking of the station he said:
 "The Pennsylvania station in New
 York city-covering more territory | than any building ever constructed at l one time in the history of the world will be thrown open to the public l at l2:01 a. m., Sunday, November 27. The operation of trains will begin in- l mediately with a full schedule of 61 l trains westbound and 55 trains east l bound every 24 hours. This does not l include S8 eastbound and S5 westbound Long Island railroad trains which are 1 already in operation.
 "The completion of the entire New | York improvement and tunnel eXten- 1 sion of the Pennsylvania railroad marks l the continuation of plans that had their 1 incipiency in 1871 when the Pennsyl- o.,tA Init t01 Dos1 de Rf | New York. From that day until the present the Pennsylyania has been en- l deavoring to gain an entrance into | New York city. Many obstacles con l fronted the management of the rail- 1 road, not the least of which was the panic of 1873, which made 1t impossible 1 to promote any large extension or to become actively engaged in a propo- 1 sition from which no immediate return l could be shown: but from this time. l and particularly in 1S74 when the Hud- l son tunnel scheme, now completed and | in operation under the control of the Hudson companies, was first started. the problem was considered. In 1884 q proposition was entertained to build the North river bridge" across the | Hudson river, with a span almost twice that of the Brooklyn bridge. The panic l of that year, however, put damper
 on all new undertakings. In 1892 the | SuDJecI yer panic of 1893 prevented the adop- ton of any particular plan.
 The franchise from the city of New l York authorizing the tunnels and station
 was granted October 9, 1902, and the first
 work on the tunnels was begun on June
 10, 1903.
 Work on the Pennsylvania station was
 started May l, 1904. so that practically
 six years and seven months were con- | suned in making the excavations for the foundation of the building and in con structing 1t. To clear the eight acres Of
 ground occupied by the station meant | the raging of some 800 buildings, among 1 which were a number Of churches "The area of the station and ya~l IS 2S acres and In this there are 1f ulies 1 of track. The storage tracks alone will 1 hold sS6 cars. The length of .ne 21 stand | ing tracks at the station is 21,50O feet. There are Il passenger platforms, with 9
 baggage and express e ,vators. The high
 est point of the trs -ks in the station is nine feet below ser level.
 "'rhe station p4ilding is 7S4 feet long
 and 4s0 feet vide. The average height | above the street is 69 feet, while the 1 maximum is 153 feet. To light the build
 ing it taxes about 300 electric arcs and l 20.0O0 ireandescents.
 ''Moee than 150,000 cubic yards of con- 1 cret0 were required for the retaining
 
 the substructure. There are to0 columns supporting the station building and the I greatest weight any one of these Is | 165S tons.
 "The stone work of the station was IA completed on July 3l, 1909 To inclose this | tvast area has necesstated the building i tof exterior walls aggregating 245S feet ,nearly half mile-in length. and has re- l iquired 490,00O cubic feet of pink granite. R In addition, there have been utilized In- q side of the concourse G0,000 cubic feet of
 stone. A total of 650.000 cubic feet of
 Milford pink granite has thus been util-
 ized in the construction and ornamenta-
 ton of this building. It took 1l40 freight
 cars to transport these 47,000 tons of stone 1 from Milford, Mass.
 Il In addition to the granite, the con struction of this building has called for l the use of 1000 tons of steel. There have l also been set in place some 100000 f bricks weighing total of 4S,ooO tons. The II first stone of the masonry work on the l building was laid June 15, 1908. The en- l tire masonry was thus completed in ap- proximately 13 months after the work was begun.
 | ."Thea river tunnels leading to the sta
 ton are all told. 6.S miles long, and the | land tunnels have the same length. From the Bergen Hill portal in New Jersey to i the Long Island entrance of the tunnels | Is 5.3 miles It is s6 miles from Harrison. N. J., to the station in New York while 1 from the latter point to Jamaica the dis
 tance is 11.85 miles.
 'The maximum capacity in trains per hour of all of the Pennsylvania tunnels
 is IA the initial daily service will con-
 sist of 2s9 Pennsylvania and Long Island
 trains.
 Passengers for Pennsylvania trains will
 find shops of various kinds in the arcade
 leading from the main entrance to the
 station at Seventh avenue and Thirty
 second street At the end of this arcade
 arc the restaurants, buffet and lunch room. Continuing ones steps down the
 grand stairway to the general waiting room one finds ticket offices. bureau of irfnrfrs. .an, telephone booths, the tele- graph office, baggage and parcel checking ..Li4l1les. This immense waiting room contains no seats. as separate waiting rooms for men and women are provided with seats and retiring rooms. In plan |. nins the station the company endeavored 10 arrange all facilities, so they could be used with the minimum effort Signs In
 profusion direct the passenger to his
 train to the different streets, stands and
 to all other objective points.
 ''The first inbound passenger train will
 arrive at the Pennsylvania station at l2:5O a. m. Sunday This train will leave
 Philadelphia at 10:12 o'clock Saturday
 evening" The first outbound train to
 leave the Pennsylvania station win be a
 Perth Amboy accommodation, departing
 at 12:02 a. m.
 "A number of Pennsylvania railroad of l flcials will probably go through the tun- | nes to the station on the first train from