SYDNEY’S TRAFFIC

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19733, 30 December 1926, Page 8

SYDNEY’S TRAFFIC

UNDERGROUND RAILWAY SYDNEY, Dec. 16. History was made in Sydney a day or two ago when the first electric train made a trial journey on that section of the underground railway so far completed, that is, as far as St. James’ Station, lat the northern end of Hyde Park, in preparation for the opening of the line for traffic before Christmas. It will now take people a shade over two and a half minutes to get from Central Station to St. Jtamcs’, in the heart of the city. Under ordinary conditions it takes them easily that time to alight from a train at the Central, elbow and shove their way through the crowds there, and board la city-bound tram, in the sure and certain knowledge that not a few of them even then, especially at the peak hours, will be merely straphangers. When the underground railway is completed, it will be possible to circle the city in about 11 j minutes. This railway, gigantic as the work is, involving an outlay of close on £7,000,000, is only the forerunner of a vast network of underground railways that will eventually spread themselves in a mighty maze under Sydney’s surface, for there will be an inner, loop as well as the present outer loop, with one underground station in the very heart of Pitt Street. Behind this vast project, which has meant, among many other problems, the diverting of huge sewers and water pipers, as well as gas and other mains, is the genius of Dr. Bradfield, an unassuming little man whose chief hobbies have been the railway and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. He will need no more enduring monuments, when ho has passed beyond, than these two vast works. Dr. Bradfield’s chief delight, after he has knocked off work, is figuratively to cary bricks, for not a week passes without a most fascinating illustrated lecture by him in one or other of the suburbs on the underground railway or the bridge. It is not unlikely that he would hardly have a night to himself if he accepted all the invitiations sent to him to speak about these two vast engineering projects.