Year: 1877

INFUSED PLANS--ARTILLERY


TRAvEL-A PNEUMATIC TUBE-AERIAI.


ROUTES, PRESENT AND PROJECTED.


New YORK, Nov. 80, 1877.
10 the Editor of the Caledonian


The words ''Rapid Transito in con-
nection with the needs of the city have
been banded about in the newspapers
and in the public mouth so long and
with SO little result that they are worn
threadbare. Year after year the sub
Ject has been agitated and re-agitated.
A hundred imaginary plans have been
nursed and heralded only to vanish into
thin air before practical blow was
strnck toward their carrying out. Thus
far the one short and inconveniently To-
Gated line of New York Elevated Rail
way is the lonely result of the endless
clamor for cheap, safe and swift COM
munication between the upper and low
er ends of this island.


Some of the plans for the accomplish
ment of rapid transit which have from
time to time found serious advocates
have been of the most remarkable ma
ture. L don't know that any one has
lately urged the adoption of plan
winch L remember seeing illustrated i'll
New York comic paper some fifteen
or twenty years ago, but some have
been seriously proposed which are
scarcely better worthy of consideration.
The old plan just referred to-and
which guess was the pioneer sugges-
on this subject-was shown by the en-
craving to consist in putting enormous
hollow globes of wrought iron into a
gigantic mortar and then shooting them
OFF after the manner subsequently, en-
larged and improved upon by Jules
Verne in "From the Earth to the moon.n
L was credulOus and unsophisticated
youngster when l saw this remarkable
wOOd-cut, and was thereby filed with
extreme awe and admiration for the big
city where there could be such wonder
full gOings-on. The engraving repre-
sented the moment just after the touch
ing off of the big mortar from whose
tremendous mouth shot vast volumes of
fire and smoke, while sailing through
the air at a rate which would satisfy the
most earnest yearner after rapid transit,
were two shells apparently about ten
feet III diameter, coupled together like
cars and provided with several windows
apiece through which could be seen sun
dry weary citizens comfortably seated
and calmly perusing the evening papers.


AS before remarked, no one, so far us
| know, has revived the claims of this
peaceful application of artillery prac-
tice, although pretty nearly every other
scheme which the imagination could
devise has found some supporters. One
of these was to build railroad over
the tops of houses. Another proposed
to avoid the objection to a road through
the open street by the simple expedient
of cutting right through the middle of
the blocks of buildings and spanning
the intervening streets by arched and
tunnelled bridges. Others still prOpos-
ed TO burrow underground one way or
another. One of these methods | out
lined in my correspondence a year or
more ago-lt consisted of building a
large brick tube under the road-bed of
the streets desired to be traversed,
through which car should be ''sucked"
at high rate of speed by pumping
away the air in front of it. A short
section of this tube was actually built
and still exists under Broadway near
the Post Office.


The plan which, among all these Ie-
jected ones, came nearest to adoption
was, l think, that of regular under
ground railroad similar to those which
long have been in successful operation
in London. This was long urged and
it was even reported that VIM. II. Van
derbilt was committed to its support
| but as this report was proved to be I'M
founded and the cost of cutting such a
road through the rocky bed of the island
was estimated at about two millions OF
dollars per mile, the scheme fell through
like all its predecessors with the ex-
ceptiOu of the raised street road) and
people were left to toll up and down
town in the horse car as before.


But despite this apparently discour-
aging state OF things the crying needs
of the people have in reality not been
so entirely ignored during this long
period of seeming practical inactiOn as
circumstances would make it appear.
Capital, ever ready to supply mani
fest want when it can see prospect OF
suitable remuneration, has long been
striving against the prejudice and self
| lSIlutSS Vi luC lCW W uOoC tuttt
they would suffer loss by the carrying
out of the only feasible plan by which
| this great public benefit is attainable
is alone responsible for the fact that the
average New YoI ker is now an hour Oh
more from his office instead of from
twenty to thirty inmates only, as he
should be.


Until very lately the heavy hand ei
legal Injunction has been laid upon the
wOuld-be builders of aerial roads but
the latter having been invariably sue
cessful in the many suits brought by
private individuals to hamper theil
action, nearly almost all these intaDgi-
BILE but insurmountable obstacles have
been removed and work is rapidly pro-
crossing OH the part of both the N. Y
Elevated Railroad and the Gilbert Ele-
waited Railroad, which are thus far the
only companies in the field. The pro-
jects now under way in the hands OF
these two corporations contemplate a
magnificent system of steam inter-cOm-
munication throughout the city, and
will if carried out give us more in the
way of rapid transit than the most san
guine have ever dared to hope.


At present there is, as most of your
readers are doubtless aware, but one
line of elevated road III operation. This
starts at the Battery and running across
that public park enters Greenwich street
on the west side of town, and following
that ancient thoroughfare to Ninth Ave-
nue. proceeds to Fifty ninth street 1.-THE
southern boundary of Central Park
which is its present terminus the for
| mer one having been at Forty-secOnd
street, nearly a mile lower down.