The New York Subway, Its Construction and EquipmentInterborough Rapid Transit Company
History
The New York Subway, Its Construction and Equipment
Interborough Rapid Transit Company
Local transit -- New York (State) -- New York; Subways -- New York (State) -- New York
At 125th Street and Lenox Avenue one of the most complicated network
of subsurface structures was encountered. Street surface electric
lines with their conduits intersect. On the south side of 125th Street
were a 48-inch water main and a 6-inch water main, a 12-inch and two
10-inch gas pipes and a bank of electric light and power ducts. On the
north side were a 20-inch water main, one 6-inch, one 10-inch, and one
12-inch gas pipe and two banks of electric ducts. The headroom between
the subway roof and the surface of the street was 4.75 feet. It was
necessary to relocate the yokes of the street railway tracks on Lenox
Avenue so as to bring them directly over the tunnel roof-beams.
Between the lower flanges of the roof-beams, for four bents, were laid
heavy steel plates well stiffened, and in these troughs were laid four
20-inch pipes, which carried the water of the 48-inch main. (See
photograph on page 49.) Special castings were necessary to make
the connections at each end. The smaller pipes and ducts were
rearranged and carried over the roof or laid in troughs composed of
3-inch I-beams laid on the lower flanges of the roof-beams. In
addition to all the transverse pipes, there were numerous pipes and
duct lines to be relaid and rebuilt parallel to the subway and around
the station. The change was accomplished without stopping or delaying
the street cars. The water mains were shut off for only a few hours.
[Illustration: SPECIAL RIVETED RECTANGULAR WATER PIPE, OVER ROOF OF
SUBWAY AT 126TH STREET AND LENOX AVENUE]
As has been said, the typical subway near the surface was used for
about one-half of the road. Since the sewers were at such a depth as
to interfere with the construction of the subway, it meant that the
sewers along that half had to be reconstructed. This indicates but
very partially the magnitude of the sewer work, however, because
nearly as many main sewers had to be reconstructed off the route of
the subway as on the route; 7.21 miles of main sewers along the route
were reconstructed and 5.13 miles of main sewers off the route. The
reason why so many main sewers on streets away from the subway had to
be rebuilt, was that, from 42d Street, south, there is a natural
ridge, and before the construction of the subway sewers drained to the
East River and to the North River from the ridge. The route of the
subway was so near to the dividing line that the only way to care for
the sewers was, in many instances, to build entirely new outfall
sewers.
[Illustration: THREE-TRACK CONCRETE ARCH--117TH STREET AND BROADWAY]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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