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Document summary:
- Title: Frederic Delaitre's Lost Subways
- Author: Frederic Delaitre
- Source: http://fdelaitre.club.fr/Beach.htm, http://fdelaitre.club.fr/Crystal.htm and http://fdelaitre.club.fr/crystal1.txt
- Copyright: Unknown
- Date: 1998/1999 as listed
Beach Pneumatic Subway
- Created: 98/12/16, Last modified: 99/02/22
- Location: Corner Warren Street/Broadway to Murray Street, New York City, New York, USA.
- Timespan: 1870 - 1873
- Description: First subway of New York City. It seemed to have a single station located in Warren Street. Passenger were carried in a car pushed forward by the pneumatic pressure generated by a huge fan. At the end of the tunnel, the car stopped. The "motorman" rang a bell to signal the fan operators to reverse the flowing. The car was then "sucked" back to Warren Street station. The Beach Pneumatic Subway was very similar to the Crystal Palace Pneumatic Railway, tested almost at the same time in England.
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Timeline:
- 1867 - Alfred Ely Beach demonstrates his pneumatic subway principles at the American Institute Fair at the Fourteenth Street Armory.
- 1868 - Start of digging in the basement of Devlin's Clothing Store in Warren Street.
- 1870 - February 26: Inauguration of the Subway.
- 1873 - Closure (to be confirmed).
- After 1873 - Tunnel is converted in a shooting gallery, then in a storage vault.
- 1896 - Death of Alfred Ely Beach.
- 1912 - Rediscovery (and utter destruction ?) of the Beach tunnel by the workers digging the BMT tunnel on Broadway.
Additional information:
- Tunnel length: 312 feet
- Tunnel diameter: 9 feet
- Track gauge: ?
- Construction costs: 350 000 USD (70 000 USD paid by A.E.Beach himself)
- Car seating capacity: 22
- Ticket price: 5 cents
-
Bibliography:
- Beach, Alfred. "The Pneumatic Tunnel Under Broadway." Scientific American, March 5, 1870: 154.
- Beach Pneumatic Transit Co. Illustrated Description of the Broadway Underground Railway: 1872.
- Bobrick, Benson. Labyrinths of Iron. New York: Newsweek Books, 1981.
- Cudahy, Brian J. Under the Sidewalks of New York: The Story of the Greatest Subway System in the World. Lexington: The Stephen Greene Press, 1988.
- Hood, Clifton. 722 Miles: The Building of the Subways and How They Transformed New York. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993.
- Kaempffert, Waldemar. "New York's First Subway." Scientific American, February 24, 1912.
- Scientific American, Jan. 11, 1896, no. 74, p.166. "Under Broadway," Harper's Weekly, March 12, 1870, p.164.
Crystal Palace Pneumatic Railway
- Created: 98/02/26, Modified: 98/11/16
- Overview:
- Location: Crystal Palace gardens, Sydenham, south of London, England.
- Timespan: 1864 - 1865 (?)
- Description: Pneumatic railway running within a 600 yards, 10 feet diameter, tunnel between Sydenham and Penge entrances of Crystal Palace gardens. Tunnel gradient was 1 in 15 with a sharp curve. A unique coach made the shuttle between the two extremities of the tunnel, gauge unknown, seating capacity 85, equipped with to sliding doors at each end. Propulsion ensured by a steam engine coupled to a fan, 22 feet in diameter. Reported to be running in the afternoon only. Price: 6 pence for the trip. This experimental railway seemed to have a very short existence.
-
Timeline:
- 1864 - Opening.
- 1865 - Closure (to be confirmed).
- Additional information: Built by T.W. Rammell, responsible for other pneumatic railway experiments in London. Remnants of the tunnel have been found in 1992 (?) in Crystal Palace Gardens. See this [below] message posted on newsgroup uk.rec.subterranea by Hugh Ainsley in January 1998.
- Bibliography: To the Crystal Palace, by C.T. GOODE, Forge Books, Wokingham, UK. 1984.
Usenet Post
Re: Pneumatic underground railways (was Re: Tunnels Again), from: hugh@cix.compulink.co.uk ("H Ainsley c o Wizar"), date: 1998/01/26, to: uk.rec.subterranea.
The pneumatic line at Crystal Palace has become an urban legend, as contemporary accounts and an engraving exist, but no remains can now be located.
Urban legend yes, but no remains located NO! There was an article in New Civil Engineer some years ago (about 6 iirc) which gave details and photographs of excavations carried out on the site, showing the invert of the tunnel and some details of the cross section I think. Certainly there were genuine remains (which may NOW have gone!) and there wans't a passenger car (with or without passengers!) bricke up inside - which is part of the legend.
If/when I re-find the artice (which I kept) I'll post the full reference - otherwise an enquiry to the Institution of Civil Engineers website would probably get a helpful reply.