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Eleventh:−The locomotives of the London Railways are all of one type of 42 tons weight and 5 feet 6 inch drivers. The trains usually consist of from three to six carriages, with capacity for conveying 30 passengers each.
The express locomotives on the New York Railway will have power to haul twelve or fifteen carriages, which will seat sixty passengers in each.
Twelfth:—I examined a great many places on the line of the "InnerCircle," to ascertain whether the trains passing through the tunnels of the London Underground Railways produced any vibration or jar of the buildings above and adjacent to the Railway, but nowhere could detect the slightest motion. I was informed that careful tests with very delicate instruments were made some years ago, and that no motion or jar as great as that produced by an ordinary vehicle passing on the street was anywhere found. The Engineers state,that in twenty years they have never been called upon to pay a guinea for damages to overhead or contiguous buildings or property.
In some places peat or tan bark was put under the sleepers, but these precautions were subsequently found to be unnecessary.
On the New York Arcade the way tracks will be 18 feet distant from the face of the buildings, which space will be vaulted so that the trains in motion cannot possibly produce vibration or jar to the buildings. The tracks of the express trains will be 11 feet still further removed from the buildings.
Thirteenth:—The numerous Railways of London radiate in every direction from the business portions to the suburban residences, extending to a complete circuit of more than thirty miles in diameter, and distribute this kind of travel over more than twenty different lines, and yet every one of them has an amount of business which pays a fair return for even the enormous cost of these radiating railways, and this is particularly the case with the very costly underground railways.
The London Metropolitan Railway, in January, 1863, had opened three and one-third miles for travel, and in 1868 about as much more. The Metropolitan District Railway opened two and a half miles in 1868, and one and a half miles in 1870, and has now, in connection with other Companies, two miles in progress.
The Metropolitan, with its branches running out from the city, is twenty-two miles in length, on which there has been expended about fifty-five millions of dollars.
The Metropolitan District with its branches is thirteen miles in length, on which there has been expended about thirty-five millions of dollars.
