The Celina Democrat. (Celina, O. [Ohio]) 1895-1921, 1912-12-20
Getting Ready to
Open Worlds
Great Gateway
Next Month
CONTINUED from page ten }

Continued from page ten.)
experimenting. 1t is only one of the
many things designed to prevent prob
lematic accidents which may never oc
cur. They are essential for the maxi
mum safety, but they add enormously
to the cost Of big terminal.
Out in the yards the frogs, switches
crossOyers and rails are all of man
ganese steel, which costs about three
times as much as ordinary steel, wears
about ten times as long and is a hun
dred times safer.
Nowhere else in the world are there
such vast spaces to. be heated and ven.
tilated as in the great buildings and
the two levels Of tracks below the
street surface. The problem, however,
is not especially complicated. 1t is one
Of bigness. Scores of great exhaust
fans draw out the impure air and blow
ers force In that which Is sweet and
clean. If that were all, however,
there would be nothing out of the or
dinary. But in winter this pure air
will be heated before it is forced down
to the track levels. Instead of being
long corridors where one is chilled to
the bone the station platforms will be
as comfortably heated as ones own
house.
In summer the sitting heat outside
will be forgotten in the great station
and on the track levels. As the fresh
air is admitted it will pass through Il
refrigerating apparatus and be cooled
to exactly the right temperature be-
fore it is poured forth in the great
spaces where the tens of thousands of
passengers congregate
Light in these subsurface track lev
els is almost as important as air. The
station yard and the platforms-some
eighty acres of space in all-have to
depend on artificial lighting almost en-
tirely In order to avoid the possibility
Of something happening to put all the
lights out the most extreme precau-
tions have been taken. First, there is
n duplicate lighting plant, so that if
there is a breakdown in one the other
can be swung into service immediate
ly. If both these sources of supply
fail there is still another reserve-a
great aggregation of storage batteries,
a series Of reservoirs of electricity that
are kept filled and can be tapped at
any time.
Storing Electricity For Emergencies.
At frequent intervals throughout the
station "yard"-the great network of
tracks that spread fanwise in two lev
els south Of Fiftieth street-there is a
battery house." in which is stored
continually enough electricity to han
die the business of its particular Sec
ton at the peak of the load" for from
twenty minutes to half an hour indie .
pendent of the dynamos and the other
machinery in the big power and light
plant. That means that if everything
else should fail the storage batteries
would keep the lights shining and the
trains moving long enough to make re-
pairs, and the general public probably
would not know that anything was
wrong The business of the great ter
minal would continue without hitch.
rhe engineers say there has not been an
of the electric service for
six years, but that they don't want any
f it is humanity possible to prevent it.
Probably nowhere else in the world
las so much important experimental
'esearch been carried on and so many
7ital problems solved for the public
benefit as in the building Of the Grand
Central terminal.
For many years the scientists there
lave been making special tests to min
mize or eliminate one of the big dam
,ers that has been attracting the at
ention Of the civilized world of late
,ears-a menace that is growing great
Il and greater each year. This is cleo
rolysis, or the decomposition of met
Is, especially iron and steel, by cleo
ricity. More than once it has been
ointed out by scientists that the life Of
teel structures is being shortened by
he leakage of electric currents from
he earth. In the streets of every citya
lilies and miles Of electric cables; over
cad are trolley lines and electric light
,ires. All these leak" more or less.
he electricity flows back into the
arth and there is attracted by such
lings as gas and water pipes. These
decomposes and makes in time like
ieces of rotten wood. 1t is the same
18th the steelwork of the skyscrapers.
he effect of electrolysis has become
ne of the biggest municipal problems
1t is Of especial impor ,
lnce in a place like the Grand Central