Page:New York arcade railway as projected .. (McAlpine, William Jarvis, 1884).djvu/14

14 The underground depot at Smithfield Market, is 025 by 240 feet square, with 24¼ feet head-room. The vaults at the sides are in bays of 25 by 15 feet, covered by arches of masonry.

The remainder of the upper market area is supported by iron columns and girders. Some of the cast iron columns are of 18 inches diameter, and carry 400 tons weight. Some of the girders are 4⅓ feet deep, boxed with flanges 2⅓ feet wide.

Besting on brick and concrete bases are 180 wrought iron columns, made generally of channel bars of 12 by 3½ A by 1⅜ inches, and plates of 15 by 1 inch Some of them are double.

The stations are roofed with iron arched ribs of 87 feet span and 29 feet rise.

I examined the locomotives and machinery of the Kings Cross and Hallowell Railway, where compressed air sis [sic] used for the motive power. There is no doubt but that this motive power has or can be successfully applied with advantage upon tunnel railways, though perhaps at a greater cist than that of the usual locomotive.

I examined the fireless locomotives in use upon the Rueil and Marly-le-Roy Railway, near Paris. These engines are run 10 miles, starting with steam at a pressure of fifteen atmospheres, and completing their trips with the steam at two atmospheres pressure.

These engines draw a train of 44 tons weight over a street Railway with much sharp curvature and high grades, at an average speed of 10 to 15 miles an hour. The steam is exhausted into the open air, but on the Mekarski Railway in Lille it is condensed as on the locomotives of the London railways.

I have examined several electric motors, and have received information in regard to their use in Europe and experimentally in this country.

I have examined the cable system in use here, and have accounts of its application elsewhere. For the way trains of the Arcade at moderate speed this system may be applicable. The experiments so far do not show that it can be applied to the fast express trains, although I have devised a plan by which I hope to make it applicable to any desired speed.

I am to receive, in a few weeks, the monthly statements of the business done, and the detailed expenses thereof, upon these Continental Railways, and will then submit a statement of the comparative value of this and of the other proposed systems of motive power, as applicable to the New York Arcade Railway.

The decision in regard to the motive power for the Arcade is not necessary at the present time, and it may perhaps be sufficient now to say, that fireless locomotives, with condensers, can be run with nearly as much economy and as complete certainty as the engines of the London Railway, and it is altogether probable that the electric motor will be perfected, if the cable system is not, so as to be applicable to the Arcade Railway.