Transit circle

“ MERIDIAN CIRCLE, or TRANSIT CIRCLE, an instrument used in observatories in modern times to combine the functions of a transit instrument and of the old mural circle. A vertical circle is carried on the axis of the transit instrument and revolves with it, its divisions being read by micrometer microscopes mounted solidly on one of the piers. ”

“ In October, 1865, occurred what was, in my eyes, the greatest event in the history of the observatory. The new transit circle arrived from Berlin in its boxes. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Where there are only two lines of rails to serve for the UP and DOWN service of a heavy passenger and goods traffic, it is imperative to restrict those lines as much as possible to the actual transit of trains, and not to block them by unnecessary occupation for shunting purposes. A goods train running a long distance collects waggons from many roadside stations, and at some of them several waggons will be taken on, to be forwarded to various and widely distant destinations. ”

“ All very pleasant except when the cogs in the cable slip, and you become part and parcel of a promiscuous mix-up, all passengers tumbling over and on to each other into the front end of the car, and if you are at the bottom of the struggling heap, with your nose banged against the door, and suffocating fat parties wedged on top of you, this rapid transit slide is not quite so delightful as when you ride on the top of the crowd. ”

“ Outward goods, collected in the town for forward transit, are brought in by carts, unloaded on the transverse stage, and trucked thence to the various stages alongside which the waggons have been placed for their reception. The narrow centre platform, having a line of rails on each side, and cranes suitably arranged, is appropriated to transfer traffic which can thus be easily removed from one waggon and placed in another. ”

“ Where a system of cheap railways is adopted, there will be year by year a tendency to multiply lines of traffic, and consequently to multiply also ports and seats of trade—a tendency, however, which may be more than neutralized by any special circumstances which may cause the lines of transit to converge rather than run parallel to one another. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The to-and-fro movement of a dense traffic on a four-track railway requires a large amount of switching, especially when each movement is complicated by junctions of two or more lines. Practically every problem of trunk line train movement, including two, three, and four-track operation, had to be provided for in the switching plants of the subway. Further, the problem was complicated by the restricted clearances and vision attendant upon tunnel construction. ”

“ In working the goods traffic on a line such as the London and North-Western, the trains are so arranged as to run with full loads between the most important points, as from London to Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Scotland, and so on; but the traffic at the intermediate stations is collected by a service of local stopping trains, and conveyed to the large junctions, such as Rugby, Crewe, and Stafford, where the waggons are properly classified and marshalled for transit by the through trains. ”

“ Whether by tunnel or viaduct, it seems imperative that New York, at an early day, shall provide itself with transit facilities such as those of the German capital, where trains stopping at all stations, and trains running at high speed stopping only at the principal stations, run on separate sets of tracks. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The power of traction required on a well-constructed level railway is generally estimated at the 240th part of the load drawn. The smallness of this proportion gives rise to a consequence of great practical importance when inclined planes occur; as must always be the case at points where the level of the country road changes. ”

“ Now, we shall see hereafter, that when adequate moving powers are applied, even with very considerable weights, the speed attainable, without loss of advantage on roads, bears a large proportion to this. Railroads are contrivances for obtaining a surface for the wheels of carriages to roll upon, smoother than the surface of a turnpike road, whether Macadamised or paved. ”

“ It is easy to understand that, under such conditions, the almost universal mode of passenger transit is by chairs and bearers. The narrowness of the paths is a source of trouble. When two parties of bearers approach each other, there is much shouting to induce one or other to return and make way ”

“ The next step in the progressive improvement of the art of inland transit, is the adaptation of the steam-engine to propel carriages on common roads. The practicability and advantage of the same power on railroads leads necessarily to enquire, whether there is any and what difference in the quality of railroads and turnpike roads, which would render a power of traction so profitable on the one impracticable on the other. ”

“ The want of the same evenness on the surface of a turnpike road, the different states of repair in which different parts of it must necessarily be at any given time, but, above all, the fact that the rolling of the carriages themselves is the means by which the road is for the most part formed, consolidated and rendered smooth, make it necessary that any power of traction used upon it shall be susceptible, as occasion may require, of considerably varied energy. ”

“ But matters are changed when we are dealing with such places as Woahoo, Kerguelen Land, Chatham Island, and the wilds of Siberia.
In the transit3 of 1874 there are many such difficulties to be encountered. In fact, it is almost impossible to conceive a transit the circumstances of which are more inconvenient. On the other hand, however, the transit is of such a nature that if once the pre63liminary difficulties are overcome, we can hope more from its indications than from those of any other transit which will happen in the course of the next few centuries. ”

“ 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. ”

“ That a railroad should be effective, it is therefore necessary that a propelling power should be used capable of great variation in its intensity, or that additional powers of traction should be provided at every inclination, or, finally, that, in the original construction of the road, a level be maintained as near as possible, and in no case should the inclination exceed 14 feet in a mile. ”

“ We wait patiently upon a long siding until everything else has been moved—through fast expresses heavily laden with opulent-looking Pullmans, jerky little suburban trains, long draughts of empty coaches, being drawn by consequential switch-engines in and out of the train-shed of the passenger station. Finally a certain semaphore blade drops, we cross over to the important main line and begin pulling on a sharp curve, across the river, clear of the station with its confusion, through and past the city to a busy division yard. ”

“ In this are plans for groups of stars for R.A. (the Transit Instrument being the only one finished) : order of preference of classes of observations: no reductions to be made after dinner, or on Sunday: no loose papers: observations to be stopped if reductions are two months in arrear: stars selected for parallax.—The reduction of transits begins on Apr. 15th. On May 15th Mr Pond sent me some moon-transits to aid in determining my longitude.—Dr Young, in a letter to me of May 7th, enquires whether I will accept a free admission to the Royal Society, which I declined. ”

“ The main line of railway runs, like an iron vertebra, a kind of backbone, from north to south; the directors of the southern line of railway, realising the necessity of extension, and desirous of giving easy access to all parts of the country, have laid down branch lines in all directions, running out like the arms of an octopus, grasping at distant towns and villages, and halting at the most beautiful secluded spots in the inmost quarters of the land. ”

“ The railway carriage suddenly grows like night—with lamps, of course, unless you are in a slow local train, in which case lamps are not always provided. Then by and by the darkness outside the carriage window is touched by puffs of cloudy whiteness, then you see a blue light on the walls of the tunnel, then the sound of the moving train changes once more, and you are out in the good open air again, and grown-ups let the straps go. ”

“ Tom stepped over to the transit, adjusting it carefully and setting the hanging plummet on dead centre with the nail head in the top of the short stake.
“Never set up a transit again,” directed Rutter, “without making sure that your levels are absolutely true, and that your vernier arrangement is in order.” ”

“ In a railway station, where the movements of trains represent the daily whirl of traffic in men, things, and ideas, every switch is a delicate instrument which may cause a derailment. The railway management places a switchman on duty at this delicate post. ”

“ As passenger carriages pass from one company’s line to another’s, it is essential for the public safety that, although the widths of the carriages on the different lines may differ from each other, the widths across the carriages from the outside of the continuous footboard on one side, to the outside of the continuous footboard on the opposite side, should be identical for the carriages of all railway companies, so that the lines of rails may be laid at the proper distance from the edges of the passenger platforms. ”

“ There will be a double line of railway, no longer picturesque, and big spreading stations instead of primitive sidings where one held up a ‘flag by day and a light at night’ to be picked up of the passing train. ”

“ We act as the owners of a railway would act if they allowed luggage trains, express trains, and horse-drawn trams to run upon one pair of rails. The radiating causeways, as I conceive them, would be entirely free from this difficulty. Neither the traffic of cross streets, nor foot passengers, nor slow-going carts and vehicles would be permitted to interfere with the equable running of fast cars. ”

“ But if only they will strip from their eyes the most blinding of all influences, acquiescence in the familiar, they will see clearly enough that this vast and elaborate railway system of ours, by which the whole world is linked together, is really only a vast system of trains of horse-waggons and coaches drawn along rails by pumping engines upon wheels. Is that, in spite of its present vast extension, likely to remain the predominant method of land locomotion—even for so short a period as the next hundred years? ”

“ These transits occur in pairs—two transits being 8 years apart and the successive pairs being separated by 122 years. The last transit occurred on December 9th, 1874, and December 6th, 1882. They will not occur again until June 8th, 2004, and June 6th, 2012. There is only a slight possibility that some young reader may see this. ”