ELECTRIC TRACTION FOR LONDON

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1508, 24 January 1901, Page 47

ELECTRIC TRACTION FOR LONDON

MAKING THE NEW TRACTION UNDER RIVER AND Ret AD. (By a. Special Correspondent of the London “Globe.”) It is an interesting experience to have the privilege of inspecting an underground railway in the making, to get down into the earth, and see the sturdy labourers digging and delving, cutting a way for the trains which in due course will carry you under familiar streets of the West End with a .speed and comfort unknown to the ’buses lumbering unheard overhead. The interest is certainly increased when you pay your visit by way of a descending cage down a pit sunk in 'the of the muddy Thames. The huge staging which juts out from one of the piers of Charing Cross Railway. Bridge is well-known sight to Londoners. It h&les two immense shafts which give access to the underground workings of the Waterloo your subaqueous and subterranean jcuryou express a desire to see what progress is being- made with yet another of the immense undertakings dsigned to revolutionise -Metropolitan locomotion, it is from this staging 'that you start on your subaqueous and scubterranean ney.

But a good deal had to be accomplMied by the engineers, Messrs Wolfe Barry, Galbraith, and Church, before it was possible to fix on a river site for the “point d’appui.” Three months of boring to determine the strata was a necessary preliminary to locating the lines for rails under the Thames. The sight for the staging first chosen had to be abandoned, for Where the shafts were to be sunk gravel revealed itself, and gravel meant increased expense. By coming more to the north instead of to the south side of the river the difficulty was in a large measure avoided, and a direct passage into the accommodating London clay made possible. This important point decided, the first of tli© 45 feet piles for the river works was driven in June, 1898, some seyen or eight feet into the clay bed, and in four months the stage was finished, and the way cleared for the sinking of one of the two shafts which enabled the opera-, ticn of tunnelling to commence in February of 'last year. Of course there jaref other points from -which the work of shaft- sinking and tunnelling has been set in motion, but the river site is an ideal one for the purpose—.practically unlimited r'odm. and :a splendid means of access for .all the material which is sent down below. Here on the staging, 150 feef from the bank, we have dynamos for lighting the underground workings and providing the contractor’s traction, air-compressors for supplying the shields while the -men are working under compressed! air (an undertaking now happily completed'( -as anyone may infer who notices that 'the 'turbulent piece, of water churned into white froth" by. the escape .off air through the 'bed of the river to its surface has now ceased its troubling) and a fully-equipped engineer’s workshop, in -addition to boiler's and engines, Compressors for “grouting,” and huge cranes to hoist the up from the workers in the river bed. The order is given for a descent, and . you envelop yourself in -an overcoat provided, and! discard the tall hat- for a cap, while a -crane -drops its clay bucket and takes up the passenger cage. Yon step inside the iron box a sturdy labourer holts you in with, quite disconcerting deliberation — there is a-feeling that all this ear© is not for nothing, and! immediately you are sinking down, leaving 75 feet of waiter above you. Arrived at the bottom of the pit, another labourer unbolts the temporary prison, and you step out into a straight tunnel well lighted by electricity, and make your way along boards slippery with wet -clay to . .where men are hard at work in a shield-.. It has not been a long walk, but already the close atmosphere and the long overcoat are having their effect. There is acuriouisly fascinating .scent, a- mixture of earth, clay, cement, and tar. Bucket trucks are being rapidly filled and as rapidly run -back over .a very narrow gauge railway, along which you have stumbled and -slipped. Mr Haigh, the escorting engineer, imparts the information that we -are just- curving into Coleridge street, on the .south -side of the Thames. You have to take his word for it, for the bump of locality, however phrenolegically prominent, will not serve you here. -We are .standing in what is really an immense iron .pipe made in

riveted sections, and at the end of the tube is the shied which lies- been forced' by -compressed air into yet another foot or two of the London clay. The front of the shield is really an immense circular knife blade, and in the rear is what is -described as a. .steel skin. The knife is pushed forward, and the men excavate within the area pierced ‘by the blade, while the steel skin supports the sides' cf the'burrowing discarded by the shield as it presses forward. One sees the whole- thing in operation. The shield space has just been cleared, the tube carrying the compressed air (1700 01T8OO lbs to the square inch) is attached to the shield, which carries fourteen rams. These rams press against the last segment- of the iron tunned riveted into position the- shield is forced forward, and while one gang of men continue to operate with a pickaxe and shovel against -the wall of London clay fronting them, -another brings up on a trolley the next segment of the cylinder through which the railway -will ultimately run. and yet another begins ri vetting in its place, -with the steel skin, for the present, behind it. Of course, when the shield makes its next insidious move for-far-d, the .steel skin is carried with it. and in the small space left between the last ring .of the tunnel and the bed of the river takes place the -operation of “grouting,” the forcing of a cement mixture behind the iron tuibe. This too, is done by -compi'es-ser air. and in the (hole-s through which the stuff is pressed Wooden jpgs ar fixed- giving the appearance of the inside oif ia huge beer barrel -with the pegs showing through. As we have- said, the men were turning a -curve, and to effect this the rams- on one side of the -shield were pressed out at a lesser distance than those on the other, while lateral and -horizontal graduated rods checked the line of progress. It is marvellous with what exactitude the right course of the tunnel is pursued!. This i® no -mole-like burrowing in the bed -of the river. Thanks to skill in. setting -th-e land lines in the tunnel by the theodolite, when the tuibe- driven into the river northwards met the tun_ net constructed southwards * from the working in Piccadilly, they were right to half an inch.

. Let us retrace our steps and make our way in the direction cf the West End. After a. time the- electric light ceases- to accompany us, and we grope along with the aid of a wind-flickered candle to a widening in the tunnel. This, you. are told, is to be -their Charing Gross Station' Yfe are under Trafalgar Square, we have passed along Northumberland! Avenue, and are now just opposite the Nelson column, throughout the whole route the tunnel runs, as far as possible -under the public road, for jt|he freeholder still has his rights from the “middle of the earth -to the sky above,” and although, if necessary, Parliament overrides them, still it is best- for the railway to go along the line of least resistance. On yo u walk, malting a sharp turn at the -bottom ofg the liaymarketf past Her Majesty’s Theatre,- which you know is somewhere over your head, and so to Piccadilly Circus.

This is a sufficiently Jong journey under such novel and trying conditions, and! one is ready to take.it for granted thatthe tunnel's run, or will run,-along Rea - gent street, a junction with the Central London Railway.’ through Portland Place, under Crescent Gardens and Regent’s Park, to Baker street, and -connect with the Metropolitan and the St. John’s Wood system. The offer of -a ride back bn the engine of Ms-srs Perry and Co., the contractors, this time in Bj second tunnel, parallel to that through which you have tramped (for there are u-p and down traffic tubes), is readily accepted. It is almost inky darkness, and as the electric locomotive rushes along to -the sounding of a gong, and the sudden bursting of electric sparks overhead like miniature lightning flashes, you feel that this-is indeed a- novel experience. Another two years should see this greatwork completed. Already they have put in 20,000 tons of iron tunnel, and taken 70,000 tons of the yielding London dl-ay.