An interesting feature of the Hoboken Station is the abandonment of the high train-shed such as has come to be a distinguishing feature of some of the world's great terminals. Engine smoke and gases work havoc with the structural steel work of such sheds, and the engineers of the Hoboken Station fashioned a low-lying roof, slotted to receive the locomotive stacks. The result is a clean train-house, yet admirably protected from the stress of weather. It is a novel note in terminal engineering. The Pennsylvania Station, opened in November, 1910, has already become one of the notable landmarks of New York. Beneath it disappeared the biggest hole ever excavated at one time in the metropolitan city; for the great station is not so famed either for its architectural beauty or for the completeness of its details (although it is in the foreguard of the world's great terminals in both of these regards), as for the stupendous engineering project that was found necessary to connect it with the trunk-line railroads that it serves. To the west, this takes form in two parallel tunnels underneath the city, the Hudson River, and the Jersey Heights; to the east a still heavier traffic, composed of empty trains in Pennsylvania service and a great army of Long Island commuters, is carried under the very heart of Manhattan Island and under the East River in four parallel tunnels. Trains run for six miles under the greatest city of the continent, with its flanking rivers and environs, without ever seeing more than a momentary flash of daylight. The terminal has no train-shed or other of the familiar external appearances of the usual railroad station in a large city. [Illustration: A MODEL AMERICAN RAILROAD STATION--THE UNION STATION OF THE NEW YORK CENTRAL, BOSTON & ALBANY, DELAWARE & HUDSON, AND WEST SHORE RAILROADS AT ALBANY] [Illustration: THE CLASSIC PORTAL OF THE PENNSYLVANIA'S NEW STATION IN NEW YORK] [Illustration: THE BEAUTIFUL CONCOURSE OF THE NEW PENNSYLVANIA STATION, IN NEW YORK] [Illustration: "THE WAITING-ROOM IS THE MONUMENTAL AND ARTISTIC EXPRESSION OF THE STATION,"--THE WAITING-ROOM OF THE UNION DEPOT AT TROY, NEW YORK] The Pennsylvania terminal also departs radically from the other great terminals in its track arrangements. The twenty-one parallel station tracks, with their platforms, are placed in a basement forty feet below street level. In fact, the great building is divided into three levels. At the street level are the broad entrances, the chief of these forming itself into a broad arcade, lined with shops that cater particularly to the demands of the traveller. On this floor are also the railroad's commodious restaurant and lunch-room.