Rapid transit

“ The solution of the mechanical problem of rapid transit will probably, in other words, tend greatly to relieve automatically the present congestion which we find in many of our large cities. Probably the best form of such rapid transit is underground electric roads, or subways. Transportation upon these roads must be made cheap enough to enable workingmen to live at a distance from their labor. With the solution of the problem of rapid transit it should be possible to scatter a city's population anywhere within a radius of thirty miles. ”

“ Yet with this double loop that I have so roughly indicated there could be a constant and high-speed operation of electric multiple-unit rapid transit trains, free from all street traffic interruptions. A man coming into the main passenger terminal of either town from New York or Chicago or any other outlying city, by a swift and easy platform change of cars, could be set down in a few more minutes in virtually any section that he wished to reach. ”

“ Since rapid transit is as much a matter of commercial importance as of mere personal convenience it must not be supposed that an average of 50 miles an hour will continue to meet the needs of travellers. ”

“ But of one thing we may be hopeful: that even as the era of rail transportation served to bring all parts of the country into more intimate relation, so may it come to pass that the world of the future will find all its distant parts brought into more friendly contact by the development of these twentieth-century miracles of rapid transit. ”

“ Petrol-driven cars to replace the expensive steam locomotives, easy rapid transit instead of the laborious crawl through the stifling desert heat—a complete railway installation, swiftly and cheaply called into being, instead of a costly and cumbersome makeshift. ”

“ The difficulty of emptying a car quickly, containing 80 or 90 people, and obliging them to file through an aisle, is well understood, as we have all tried it, to say nothing of the inconvenience of pushing one’s way through a car, packed with standing crowds, in order to get out at the desired station. The delay at stations to allow entrance and exit is no inconsiderable obstacle to the desired rapid transit, as the time consumed is, on an average, nearly what it takes to run from station to station. ”

“ The man, in all the pride and worldliness of his nature, would see but the advantages of rapid transit, where the poor woman saw many a change for the worse,—all the little incidents and adventures of a pleasant journey being now superseded by the clock-work precision of the rail, the hissing engine, and the lumbering train.
Long after they had left the carriage, I continued to dwell upon the words they had spoken ”

“ It is pretty well forgotten now, thanks to the rapid transit afforded by the railway. Under all the circumstances, the enterprising men who constructed this road deserve every cent they received from it; it has saved thousands of lives to the population of the United States and other countries, and has added materially to the commercial facilities of the world. It was built under many discouragements, and the energy displayed in its construction was worthy of a liberal reward. ”

“ The really rapid transit lines in New York are underground, and have six tracks, two being used for freight. At all stations the local tracks rise several feet towards the street and slope off in both directions, while the express tracks do this only at stations at which the faster trains stop. This gives the passengers a shorter distance to descend or rise in the elevators, and the ascent before the stations aids the brakes in stopping, while the drop helps the motors to start the trains quickly in getting away. ”

“ These would furnish partial relief to the congestion, while they would bring fresh traffic to the short distance service, which would become an important part of the elevated railroad system. Competition in what may be termed the trunk-line business need not, therefore, be disastrous to existing rapid transit lines. It would rather come as a relief, just as the street-car lines found the opening of the elevated roads to be twenty years before.
But the public paid little attention to the first discomforture of the elevated railroad magnates. ”

“ At each station there is a down grade of 2.1 per cent., to assist in the acceleration of the cars when they start. In order to make time on roads running trains at frequent intervals, it is necessary to bring the trains to their full speed very soon after starting. The electrical equipment of the Rapid Transit Railroad will enable this to be done in a better manner than is possible with steam locomotives, while these short acceleration grades at each station, on both up and down tracks, will be of material assistance in making the starts smooth. ”

“ We must improve the flexibility of our transportation system and offer greater choice and diversity in transportation services. While the private automobile will continue to be the principal means of transportation for many Americans, public transportation can become an increasingly attractive alternative. We, therefore, want to explore a variety of paratransit modes, various types of buses, modern rapid transit, regional rail systems and light rail systems. ”

“ The methods of handling the travel and traffic in the city of London form a very interesting subject for the study of the engineer. The problem of rapid transit and transportation for a city of five millions of inhabitants is naturally very complicated, and a very difficult one to solve satisfactorily. ”

“ The Bicycle cars will obviate this difficulty, giving every opportunity for the saving of time at the stations, which in making 40 or 50 stops is considerable. The income of the elevated railways may be greatly increased and the expenses decreased, and at the same time give the public the much talked of and desired rapid transit. There is every reason to believe that the Bicycle express trains could average 40 miles per hour on the elevated railroad, making only the most important stops, while local trains could more than double the present average rate of speed. ”

“ We shall have to build a tunnel, an underground railway, a subway. Of course our roads must be either above ground, on the ground level, or below ground. The elevated roads have shown themselves to be unpleasant and annoying. It is not agreeable to look into the upper-story windows of dwellings, nor do people enjoy living on streets where the elevated road runs. Rapid transit is impossible in the street, where cross streets continually delay the cars, and where wagons and carriages of all sorts are regularly passing. The subway is the best method, the only decent way left open. ”

“ The New York Central has been, as we shall see in greater detail in the chapter on the coming of electricity, the first of the standard steam railroads entering New York to provide suburban trains of multiple unit motor-cars, similar to those used in rapid transit subway and elevated trains. The great advantage of these trains over trains handled by either steam or electric locomotives is an operating advantage. The train may be so quickly turned in terminals as to bring the terminal problem down an appreciable percentage, and so to give a greater hauling capacity to main-line tracks. ”

“ In determining the electrical equipment of the trains, the company has aimed to secure an organization of motors and control apparatus easily adequate to operate trains in both local and express service at the highest speeds compatible with safety to the traveling public. For each of the two classes of service the limiting safe speed is fixed by the distance between stations at which the trains stop, by curves, and by grades. ”

“ The work of construction has been greatly facilitated by the broad minded and liberal policy of the Rapid Transit Board and its Chief Engineer and Counsel, and by the coöperation of all the other departments of the City Government, and also by the generous attitude of the Metropolitan Street Railway Company and its lessee, the New York City Railroad Company, in extending privileges which have been of great assistance in the prosecution of the work. ”

“ The plans adopted provide electric equipment at the outstart capable of operating express trains at an average speed approximating twenty-five miles per hour, while the control system and motor units have been so chosen that higher speeds up to a limit of about thirty miles per hour can be attained by increasing the number of motor cars providing experience in operation demonstrates that such higher speeds can be obtained with safety. ”

“ Again, there were a number of very serious mechanical difficulties to be studied and overcome in the construction of such a car, such as avoidance of excessive weight, a serious element in a rapid transit service, insulation from the extremes of heat and cold, and the prevention of undue noise in operation. It was decided, therefore, to bend all energies to the production of a wooden car with sufficient metal for strength and protection from accident, i. e., a stronger, safer, and better constructed car than had heretofore been put in use on any electric railway in the world. ”

“ All attempts to build a road under the early special charter and later under the general laws having failed, the city secured in 1891 the passage of the Rapid Transit Act under which, as amended, the subway has been built. As originally passed it did not provide for municipal ownership. It provided that a board of five rapid transit railroad commissioners might adopt routes and general plans for a railroad, obtain the consents of the local authorities and abutting property owners, or in lieu of the consents of the property owners the approval of the Supreme Court ”

“ Express trains and local trains alike are provided with a bus line, which interconnects the electrical supply to all cars and prevents interruption of the delivery of current to motors in case the collector shoes attached to any given car should momentarily fail to make contact with the third rail. At certain cross-overs this operates to prevent extinguishing the lamps in successive cars as the train passes from one track to another. ”

“ Today, we are witnessing the beginning of a new era in space transportation with the development of commercial space vehicles.
As our cities grew, transit systems evolved to provide affordable, convenient urban transportation. The 20th Century brought the automobile, truck, intercity bus, rapid rail systems, and an expanded road system that now includes thousands of miles of interstate highways. ”

“ The two advantages of increased cheapness and speed, besides extending the amount of existing traffic, call into existence new objects of commercial intercourse. For the same reason that the reduced cost of transport, as I have shown, calls new soils into cultivation, it also calls into existence new markets for manufactured and agricultural produce. The great speed of transit, which has been proved to be practicable, must open a commerce between distant points in various articles, the nature of which does not permit them to be preserved so as to be fit for use beyond a certain time. ”

“ The economic value of the fast transportation of passengers, mail and express matter has been well proven. The existing high speed railway trains and ocean liners are the result of the ever increasing demand for rapid communication both on land and water. ”

“ But the peculiar nature of a railway, the magnitude and weight of the loads which may be transported on it, and the prodigious speed which may be attained, render the transport of cattle, meat or fish of every species, to almost any distance, both easy and cheap. In process of time, when the railway system becomes extended, the metropolis and populous towns will therefore become markets, not, as at present, to districts within limited distances of them, but to the whole country within 200 miles of the metropolis. ”

“ A [Pg 28] point quite as important with these means of transit as actual speed of movement is frequency: time is wasted abundantly and most vexatiously at present in waiting and in accommodating one's arrangements to infrequent times of call and departure. The more frequent a local service, the more it comes to be relied upon. Another point—and one in which the omnibus has a great advantage over the railway—is that it should be possible to get on and off at any point, or at as many points on the route as possible. ”

“ Wherever traffic is dense and the distance to be traversed not too great, the conditions are already present for the advent of this form of locomotive; and when we recall the rapidity with which city and suburban railways have spread, we can not doubt that once the problems of electric railway engineering are worked out, and the necessary preliminary work of demonstration gone through with, we will witness an equally rapid extension of electric traction to the steam highways of the world. ”

“ The goods trains must shunt out of the way some time before a passenger train is due, and this frequent shunting into sidings results in hours of delay in the transit of the goods and cattle traffic; and when one of such trains is allowed to proceed again on its way up to another station, dove-tailed as it may be between two fast passenger trains, there is always the tendency to run at a much higher rate of speed than is prudent for the class of rolling-stock of which the goods train is composed. ”

“ When people do not move about freely commerce is practically at a standstill. But if two passenger road trains, travelling at an average speed of not more than eight miles an hour, one going up and the other down, and connecting two or more market towns and lines of railway, passed through the village, how different would be the state of things! Ease of transit multiplies business, and, besides passengers, a large amount of light material could thus be conveyed. ”