MOSCOW TUBE TRAINS

Evening Star, Issue 21632, 30 January 1934, Page 12

MOSCOW TUBE TRAINS

GIRL VOLUNTEER WORKERS London’s passenger transport system, recognised the world over as one of the marvels of modern engineering science, has long been the envied model of Moscow, and now the Soviet capital is /busily building its first underground railway. No great city needs such a system more. Moscow’s nfnn-in-the-street has had to rely either on overcrowded tramcars and buses or his own legs. He could not afford to hire one of the few taxicabs available, and only officials going about their duties and foreign business men and diplomats have their own motor cars.

Moscow citizens hope to be riding in their electric underground railway by November, 1934. Experts from London’s underground system went to Moscow to give advice on the constructional work. Now the central shaft has been sunk, in the heart of the city, in the little park which once occupied part of the Theatre square. As other shafts are completed their towers are decorated with slogans designed to spue the interest of the Russians in their now possession. These slogans are hardly necessary. Moscow is only too anxious to see in action a transport system which will do away with the old tooth-and-nail battles to board buses and tram cars, as since the close of the Civil War the city’s population has swollen by thousands and tens of thousands. Boarding a bus has become a feat, demanding a good deal of physical strength and inexhaustible patience. In rush hours people cling like bunches of grapes on the outsides of tram cars.

ft is expected that 70,000 workers will be engaged on the underground system before its completion. At least half of these will bo Komsomols (members of the Young People’s Communist League), aged between sixteen and twenty-four. Komsomols are being asked to volunteer for the work, because of the general labour shortage in Russia, and among the 15,00 U volunteers so far are several thousand girls. These, young people must obtain permission from their factories, school, or offices before transferring to “metro” work, and jnust also undergo a physical examination. Some youngsters give up their free day to the task without compensation.