ni tnousaiid iiitd <>in\\<>il<l-\\ id<- Subjects 
 
 fejjg tv M RAILRO AD 
 
 Il&siiifims 
 
 m NEW YORK CITY 
 
 Triumph of Railroad Engineering, Architecture and Construction ^ 
 
 In bringing its tracks into the very heart of the retail- business district 
 of New York City, close to the great hotels and theatres of the metropolis, 
 the Pennsylvania Railroad Company has wrought a great triumph of rail- 
 road engineering at a special outlay of $90,000,000, entirely apart 
 from the cost of the Hudson River (McAdoo) Tunnels. The problem 
 was not to spring a bridge over the mile- wide Hudson River — shipping for- 
 bade that comparatively simple linking of the city to the continent. It" was 
 underneath the river that the engineers sought ingress to the city, and 
 in place of stable rock they encountered shifting silt. But great steel shields 
 were forced forward by hydraulic power from shafts at either end, cast-iron 
 and concrete lined the twin-bores, steel pillars were sunk to bed-rock to 
 support the tubes, and now the Pennsylvania has two tracks right into the 
 centre of New York City — the great metropolis that dominates America. 
 
 SEE BACK COVER 
 
Cbe Pennsylvania Railroad Tunnels 
 
 By WILLIAM WIRT MILLS 
 
 ENTRANCE of the Pennsylvania Rail- 
 road into New York City was first pro- 
 posed by Alexander J. Cassatt, president 
 of the company, in his annual report to the 
 stockholders in March, 1901, when he said: 
 " Your interests, as well as the convenience 
 of the public, require the extension of your line 
 into New York, and the establishment of a 
 centrally located passenger-station in that city, 
 through which the inconvenience and delays 
 of the transfer by ferry will be avoided." 
 
 Mr. Cassatt and Samuel Rea, third vice- 
 president, took up the problem and on Dec. 
 12 of the same year the company announced 
 its plans to establish all-rail connection be- 
 tween its lines in New Jersey and Long Island, 
 through the heart of New York by means 
 of the most daring scheme of tunnels. 
 
 A year was occupied by negotiations for the 
 franchise, which was signed by Mayor Low 
 on Dec. 22, 1902, and on June 10, 1903, 
 construction was begun and pushed with such 
 energy and with so few set-backs that the 
 twin Hudson River tubes were completed in 
 1907, two of the four East River tunnels 
 were finished in February, 1908, and the 
 entire system will, be in operation in 1908. 
 
 This 15-mile link overcomes the insularity 
 cf Manhattan and unites the 10,978 miles of 
 Pennsylvania Railroad tracks with the lines 
 on Long Island and by the New York Con- 
 necting R. R. with the tracks of the New 
 York, New Haven and Hartford system. 
 
 Leaving the present Pennsylvania main line 
 at Harrison, N. J., the tracks cross the 
 Hackensack river and meadows and enter the 
 tunnels at Bergen Hill (p. 5), not coming out 
 again upon the level until they reach the great 
 Sunnyside terminal yards at Thompson Ave., 
 Long Island City, a mile east of East River. 
 
 There are two tunnels under Bergen Hill 
 and the Hudson River ( pp. 4 and 7 ) , the dis- 
 tance between the centres of the tubes under 
 the river being 37 feet. These tunnels con- 
 tinue under Manhattan to the entrance to the 
 depressed station-yard at 10th Avenue. This 
 work from the West Portal at Bergen Hill to 
 9th Avenue is under the direction of Charles 
 M. Jacobs, chief engineer, and James Forgie, 
 chief assistant engineer. Between Bergen Hill 
 and Harrison, A. C. Shand, chief engineer 
 of the Pennsylvania Railroad, has charge. 
 
 In the great yard between 9th and 8th 
 Aves., 60 feet below the surface, the two 
 tracks multiply to 21 and pass through the 
 
 Copyright, 1908, 
 
 station (p. 15) at a depth of 40 ft.; at 7th 
 Ave. the tracks, converging into six, enter 
 three-track tunnels, one under 3 2d St. and 
 one under 33d; near 6th Ave., at a depth cf 
 75 ft. , these tunnels change from two wide 
 arches to two twin arches, carrying four tracks 
 to 1st Ave., where they enter four separate 
 tubes which extend under the East River, a 
 distance of 3,916 ft.; near the Long Island 
 shore the tunnels begin to converge and they 
 meet in an open cut (p. 16) that leads into 
 the Sunnyside yards at Thompson Ave. , 2.85 
 miles from the station entrance in Seventh 
 Ave. Alfred Noble is chief engineer for all 
 work east of 9th Ave., with Charles L. 
 Harrison as chief assistant engineer. 
 
 Including 16 miles of tracks in the central 
 station and yards, there will be 31.70 miles of 
 track between the Jersey Portal at Bergen Hill 
 and the terminal yard at Sunnyside, L. I. City. 
 
 All the trains will be operated by electricity 
 furnished from power houses in Long Island 
 City and at Harrison, N. J., planned and built 
 by Westinghouse, Church, Kerr&Co., under 
 the direction of George Gibbs, chief engineer 
 of electric traction. 
 
 The entire work has been prosecuted under 
 the general direction of Vice-President Rea, 
 with the advice of a board of consulting en- 
 gineers consisting of Brig. Gen. C. W. Ray- 
 mond, U. S. A., chairman, and Messrs. 
 Jacobs, Noble and Gibbs. During the period 
 in which the project was reduced to a work- 
 ing basis, Wm. H. Brown, chief engineer of 
 the Pennsylvania Railroad, and Gustav Lin- 
 denthal, Bridge Commissioner of New York 
 City, were members of the board. 
 
 Closely related to the vast tunnel and sta- 
 tion enterprise is the New York Connecting 
 Railway, which will carry trains from the tun- 
 nels through to New England and give the 
 N, Y., New Haven & Hartford access to 
 Pennsylvania station at 7th Ave. This $15,- 
 000,000 improvement, including the Hell 
 Gate Bridge (p. 17), twelve miles of railroad 
 and four great freight terminals, will furnish 
 a route for the Pennsylvania's New England 
 and Long Island freight by means of car-floats 
 across New York Bay to Greenville, N. J. 
 
 The portion of the Pennsylvania tracks 
 from Harrison to Jersey City, relieved by the 
 diversion of the large part of the main line 
 heavy traffic through the tunnels, will be used 
 for a surburban service through the McAdoo 
 tubes to Cortlandt St., Manhattan f pp. 1 8-23 ), 
 by Moses King 
 
 fcx ICtbrtB 
 
 SEYMOUR DURST 
 
SAMUEL REA, 3d v. p. P.R.R.; JAMES M'CREA, Pres. P.R.R.; CHAS. E. PUGH, 2d 
 v.p. P.R.R.; CHARLES M. JACOBS, designer tunnels and ch. eng.; ALEX. J. CASSATT, 
 late Pres. P. R. R.; JOHN P. GREEN', 1st v.p.; JAMES FORGIE, ch. asst. eng. N. Riv. 
 Div.; WM. H. BROWN, bd. of eng. ; J. T. RICHARDS, ch. eng. maintenance of way. 
 
WEEH AWKEN SHAFT, 100x154ft. at top; 56x116ft. at bottom; 76 ft. deep; lined with 
 9,810 cu. ft. concrete; begun June II, '03, finished Sept. 1, '04. Manhattan Shaft, 22x32 
 ft. 5 55 ft. deep; begun June IO, 03; finished Dec. n. Built by United Eng. & Con. Co. 
 
CROSS SECTION PENNA. TUNNELS, trains running in tubes through silt bottom ui 
 Hudson, 4,432 ft. wide, 53 ft. deep; maximum depth bottom of tubes, 97 ft.; built by shields, 
 air pressure, 15 to 3 7 lbs. sq. in.; north tube lining completed Oct. 9, '06, south, Nov. 18, '06. 
 
JUNCTION OF SOUTH TUBES, building last rings, Nov. 14, '06; bores made by driving 
 1 1 3-ton steel shield with 24 hydraulic rams exerting forward pressure of 6,000,000 lbs. Weight 
 of shield and machinery, 193 tons. EMERGENCY AIR-LOCK for refuge in case of flooding. 
 
LINING AND WATERPROOFING rock section under Manhattan after excavation. 
 LAYING DUCTS for electric power and light wires to carry the 105,000 electrical 
 norse-power which will be required to move the trains and light stations and tunnels. 
 
EXCAVATING under 9th Ave. "L" for cut through which materials trom station excava- 
 tion are carried to scows which are towed to Greenville, N. J., to fill in great freight yard, 
 EIGHTH AVENUE, with trolley line supported on tre«tle during work on scation excavation. 
 
POWER HOUSE, Long Island City, 200x500 ft. with coal tower 170 ft. high; 145,500 
 kilowatt generating units, 32 tubular boilers; George Gibbs, chief engineer electric traction. 
 LONG ISLAND CITY, emergence of tunnels and connection with Long Island RR. system. 
 
HELL GATE BRIDGE, four tracks; massive granite abutments surrounded by concrete towers; 
 220 fc. high; steel arch span, 1,000 ft. long; 135 ft. above water; with viaduct approaches, 
 longest and heaviest bridge in the world; 80,000 tons. Gustav Lindenthal, Cons. Eng. & Arch. 
 
F)udson "Cimnel System 
 
 IT WAS as long ago as 1871 that the 
 tunnelling of the Hudson River was pro- 
 posed by D. C. Haskin, who conceived 
 the idea that iron cylinders, fitted with air- 
 locks, placed horizontally below water-level, 
 could be used with compressed air in tunnel 
 construction. In November, 1 8 74, he began, 
 from a shaft sunk in Jersey City, to construct 
 the first tunnel through the silt that forms 
 the bottom of the Hudson River, and had 
 reached a point about 1,200 feet from the 
 shore, when, on July 21, 1880, a blow-out 
 caused the loss of 20 1 ves and stopped the work. 
 
 In 1888 the project was revived, but the 
 work stopped in 1892, with 3,000 feet of 
 brick-lined tunnel completed. In 1902 Wm. 
 G. McAdoo organized the New York and 
 New Jersey Railroad Co., adopted the plan 
 of building steel tubes, cut through the first 
 tunnels under the Hudson, the headings of 
 the north tube meeting on March 8, 1904, 
 and south tube on Sept. 29,' 1905. 
 
 These tunnels, which are 5,600 feet long, 
 extend from 15th St. , Jersey City, to Morton 
 St., New York, and are being continued 
 under Greenwich and Christopher Sts. and 
 6th Ave. to 33d St., with a spur across 9th 
 St. to connection with Subway at Astor Place. 
 
 Another pair of tubes is being built by the 
 Hudson & Manhattan Railroad Co. from 
 Cortlandt and Fulton Sts., New York, to 
 Montgomery St., Jersey City, with an exten- 
 sion of three-quarters of a mile to a con- 
 nection with the Pennsylvania R. R. elevated 
 tracks at Brunswick St. A transverse tunnel 
 a mile and a quarter long through Jersey City 
 and Hoboken, under the tracks of the Penn- 
 sylvania, Erie and Lackawanna Railroads, with 
 entrances to the station of each road, will 
 connect the two sets of tunnels. 
 
 Not only has Mr. McAdoo carried practi- 
 cally to completion in six years an enterprise 
 that had dragged along unsuccessfully for 
 thirty years, but he has greatly enlarged its 
 scope, completing a system of 15 miles of 
 underground railway, including four tubes 
 under the Hudson whose total length is 
 23,256 feet, or 4.4 miles. * 
 
 Where the northerly bores cross the river 
 is 5,500 feet wide and the distance between 
 the shafts is 5,650 feet, the maximum depth 
 of the water, 60 feet; maximum depth of 
 bottom of tube, 97 feet. 
 
 The southerly tubes, begun in January, 
 1906, will be 5,978 feet long, and will have 
 a maximum depth of 92 feet. This work is 
 being rabidly finished in 1908. 
 
 Charles M. Jacobs, the Pennsylvania tun- 
 nel builder, is chief engineer, with J. Vipond 
 Davies, as chief assistant, in direct charge. 
 
 Both companies are controlled by the Hud- 
 son Companies, Walter G. Oakman presi- 
 dent, and are financed by the banking house 
 of Harvey Fisk & Sons. 
 
 Through these tunnels, which are 1 5 ft. 3 
 in. in diameter, high speed electric trains will 
 be run from Newark to the Church. St Ter- 
 minal in 15 minutes; the passage under the 
 river, from the present Penna. station in 
 Jersey City, will take three minutes. 
 
 From Newark, through the transverse tun- 
 nel and the northerly tubes, to 33d St. and 
 6th Ave., Manhattan, will occupy 29 min- 
 utes; from Hoboken, 19 minute\ The 
 portion of the system between Hoboken and 
 19th St., Manhattan, was opened to travel 
 by President Roosevelt, February 25, 1908. 
 
 Eight-car trains are operated on a headway 
 of 1 ]/ 2 minutes during the rush hours, pro- 
 viding seats for 16,000 passengers an hour. 
 The cars have side doors as well as entrances 
 at both ends, all operated by compressed air, 
 and at the terminals the trains stop between 
 broad, parallel platforms, so that passengers 
 can be discharged from one side and admitted 
 from the other, avoiding the chief cause of con- 
 gestion and delays in the municipal subway oper- 
 ated by the Interborough Rapid Transit Co. 
 
 At Harrison, where the Hudson Compa- 
 nies' trains will start, when the entire system 
 is in operation in 1909, there will be a great 
 transfer station, where all the trains of the 
 Pennsylvania Railroad will stop, and which 
 will be the focus of the various lines of the 
 Public Service Corporation, which has 640 
 miles of street railways in Newark, Elizabeth, 
 and the other north Jersey cities and towns. 
 
 The Church St. Terminal will be the 
 heart of underground transit in New York, 
 tor from this station, without at any time 
 going from under cover, a passenger will be 
 able to go by the municipal subway either to 
 the Grand Central Station or to the Flatbush 
 Station of the Long Island Railroad, by the 
 McAdoo tubes to the Pennsylvania, Erie, or 
 Lackawanna Stations in Jersey City, or to 
 the Pennsylvania Station at Harrison, or by 
 the elevators to either the 6th Ave. or the 
 9th Ave. elevated lines. 
 
 At 33d St. and 6th Ave. the Hudson 
 Companies will have another large terminal, 
 on the site of the Manhattan Theatre, with 
 connection with the Pennsylvania Station at 
 7th Ave. 
 
E. F. C. YOUNG, ANTHONY N. BRADY, E. H. GARY, directors Hudson & Manhattan RR. 
 J. VIPOND DAVIES, assistant to Eng'r Jacobs. W. G. M' ADOO, president. SIR WEETMAN 
 D. PEARSON, S. Pearson & Son, contractors for M'Adoo tubes and Penna.-East River tunnels. 
 C F. McKIM and WM. R. MEAD, architects P.RR. C.W. CLINTON, architect H.R.Term. 
 
HUDSON COMPANIES TRAIN, under Hudson from 6th Av. & 19th St. to Hoboken. 
 MORTON ST. TUBES, subway from Sixth Ave. entering twin tunnels under the Hudson 
 at Morton and West Sts., trains descending to a depth of 95 ft. below mean high water. 
 
M'ADOO TUNNEL; Morton St. tube, opened Feb. 25, '08; Cortlandt St. tubes under way. 
 M'ADOO TERMINAL, 6th Ave. and 33d St.; Penna. tunnels on lowest level, proposed 
 municipal subway; M'Adoo subway terminus; surface lines; 6th Ave. "L" and bridge over"L." 
 
CHL RCH ST. TERMINAL, largest and heaviest building in city j 200,000 tons, including 
 24,000 tons structural steel, 37,500 tons concrete, 16,300,000 bricks, 4,500 tons terra 
 cotta, 120,000 sq. ft. glass, 140 miles of pipe, 113 miles wiring, 39 electric elevators, 22 stories, 
 275 ft. above curb; entire structure, 18,150,000 cubic ft. Clinton S: Russell, Architects. 
 
Cbc Ingenious Construction of 
 Hudson River funnels 
 
 NEW problems were met and solved in the building of the tunnels under 
 the Hudson and East Rivers — problems considerably more difficult than 
 those encountered in any of the eight small tunnels under the Thames at 
 London, or in the 6,000 ft. bore under the St. Clair River connecting Port Huron 
 with Sarnia in Canada, all of "which were constructed by the shield method. 
 
 In each of these cases the tunnel was driven through clay, or sand, or gravel, 
 and onlv moderately high air-pressures were necessary to prevent the water oozing 
 into the tube, but in boring under the rivers that gird Manhattan, the builders 
 encountered a very soft mud, unstable and treacherous, and besides using air pres- 
 sures as high as 39 lbs. per sq. in. above the normal, they had to resort to num- 
 erous devices to prevent this Hudson silt from engulfing the workers and machinery. 
 
 A special type of shield was devised by Chief Engineer Jacobs and Assistant 
 Engineer Forgie, builder of tunnels under the Thames, London. Before the bore 
 entered the silt a concrete bulkhead, 10 ft. thick, was v erected in the rock section 
 ot the tunnel. This was pierced with three air-locks, those for passing materials 
 into the shield-chamber and for the admission of the workers being cn a lower 
 level, and the emergency air-lock near the top of the tube. 
 
 Within the chamber formed by this bulkhead the shield was erected — a steel 
 structure, 23 feet 6^ inches in diameter and 15 feet 11% inches long, with nine 
 pockets, three on lower level, four in midsection, two at top. 
 
 From the pockets sliding platforms were pushed forward into the silt, under 
 a movable hood that could be projected 25 inches forward of the cutting edge of 
 the shield. On the platforms the " sand hogs " worked at the silt, passing the 
 excavated material back through the pockets into the shield-chamber, and as thev 
 cleared the way the shield was pushed forward by hydraulic rams. 
 
 On the chamber side of the shield was another hood or "skin" of steel- 
 plates, extending back 6 ft. 4 in., to hold up silt while cast-iron lining was being put in. 
 
 In each of the tunnels different difficulties were encountered. While the 
 Pennsylvania tubes went from shore to shore, under the Hudson, through silt, 
 the McAdoo north tubes encountered rock, and blasting had to be resorted to; in 
 the East River tunnels the top of the bores came so close tc the river bottom that 
 blankets of clay had to be placed in the water over the place of^the boring. 
 
 But the most remarkable feature of the construction of these tunnels is the 
 scheme bv which thev have been converted into sub-aqueous bridges. 
 
 In lining the vjnnels, on the bottom centre line, a cast-steel shoe or plug 
 2 feet 7 inches in diameter was inserted every fifteen feet. On this was screwed 
 a 7-foot tube of the same diameter, made of steel, 1 ^ inches thick, and this was 
 forced down into the silt by a hydraulic ratchet until it was flush with the inner 
 bottom of the tube; then another 7-foot section was screwed to it and forced down, 
 and this was continued until a hollow steel column had been constructed and 
 forced down 10 feet or 100 feet, as might be, until the steel shoe was firmly- 
 planted on bed-rock. Then the hollow column was cut off flush with the inner 
 lining and filled with concrete. 
 
 Thus a series of steel and concrete foundations in the river form a bridge 
 carrying the tracks of the Pennsylvania Railroad under the river within the tube, 
 which in turn was strengthened by a lining of two feet of concrete, held in solid 
 miss and running from shore to shore, affording a solid structure in which heavy 
 express-trains can be moved with safety at high speed, at the rate of a train every 
 two minutes. William Wirt Mills,