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| Re: Tracks beyond Euclid Ave (410060) | |||
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Re: Tracks beyond Euclid Ave |
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Posted by BMTLines on Sun Apr 1 14:17:43 2007, in response to Tracks beyond Euclid Ave, posted by NewLots#2 on Wed Mar 28 23:18:42 2007. This talk of abandoned tunnels made me curious - I looked up some old engineering journals and found the following - seems there is a long lost trolley tunnel between Astoria and 71st Street Manhattan:On June 21st, 1886, at the request of Mr. James W. Smith, then President of the Long Island City Railway, a report outlining the future policy of the Company was presented in which direct service to Manhattan was advocated. Following this report, the question was thoroughly ventilated in the public press, with strong advocacy of the suggestion. For several years, however, nothing was done with this proposition. About 1891, this company was merged into the New York and Queens County Railway, and it obtained from the Legislature of the State of New York the necessary franchise rights to construct a trolley line to New York City by a tunnel to be constructed under the East River. In 1892 and 1893 the writer's firm constructed, for this corporation, a tunnel (internal diameter 25 ft. 2 in. in the portions which were iron lined and a rectangular section 20 by 16 ft. in the portions in solid rock) under the East River, crossing the two channels and Blackwell's Island. This tunnel (shown on Plate XXIV) extends from the foot of East 71st Street, Manhattan, to the the foot of Webster Avenue, Long Island City. Borings and soundings were made at close intervals across the channels, and as far as information could be obtained (with the extremely rapid current running in the East and West Channels of the East River), there was every reason to believe that the construction of a tunnel on that line would be through a practically continuous bed of rock, although the geological information indicated clearly the intrusion of a seam of dolomitic limestone under each channel. The work on this tunnel was let out by contract, and proceeded very slowly for a considerable time, when, having sunk both shafts and having turned the tunnel on the Manhattan side of the river, decomposed rock was encountered at the contact between the gneiss and dolomite under the West Channel. This tunnel was at a depth of nearly 100 ft. below mean low water. The depth of the water in the West Channel was 65 ft., but that in the East Channel was only about 30 ft. Under the West Channel two comparatively narrow sheared contacts in the dolomite rock were badly decomposed; under the East Channel the contacts between the Fordham gneiss, the mica schist, and the dolomitic formation were also extensively distorted, and, to some extent, decomposed, but the whole of this tunnel was completed successfully with the use of air pressure, the depth not being too great to prohibit this method of construction. After the completion of this tunnel the New York and Queens County Railway was unable to secure the necessary operating certificates and the tunnel was abandoned. |
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