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
For the boiler room, a row of Nernst lamps in front of the batteries
of boilers is provided, and, in addition to these, incandescent lamps
are used in the passageways around the boilers, at gauges and at water
columns. The basement of the boiler room, the pump room, the
economizer floor, coal bunkers, and coal conveyers are lighted by
incandescent lamps, while arc lamps are used around the coal tower and
dock. The lights on the engines and those at gauge glasses and water
columns and at the pumps are supplied by direct current from the
250-volt circuits. All other incandescent lamps and the Nernst lamps
are supplied through transformers from the 60-cycle lighting system.
[Sidenote: _Emergency
Signal System
and Provision
for Cutting Off
Power from
Contact Rail_]
In the booth of each ticket seller and at every manhole along the west
side of the subway and its branches is placed a glass-covered box of
the kind generally used in large American cities for fire alarm
purposes. In case of accident in the subway which may render it
desirable to cut off power from the contact rails, this result can be
accomplished by breaking the glass front of the emergency box and
pulling the hook provided. Special emergency circuits are so arranged
that pulling the hook will instantly open all the circuit-breakers at
adjacent sub-stations through which the contact rails in the section
affected receive their supply of power. It will also instantly report
the location of the trouble, annunciator gongs being located in the
sub-stations from which power is supplied to the section, in the train
dispatchers' offices and in the office of the General Superintendent,
instantly intimating the number of the box which has been pulled.
Automatic recording devices in train dispatchers' offices and in the
office of the General Superintendent also note the number of the box
pulled.
The photograph on page 120 shows a typical fire alarm box.
CHAPTER VIII
ROLLING STOCK--CARS, TRUCKS, ETC.
The determination of the builders of the road to improve upon the best
devices known in electrical railroading and to provide an equipment
unequaled on any interurban line is nowhere better illustrated than in
the careful study given to the types of cars and trucks used on other
lines before a selection was made of those to be employed on the
subway.
All of the existing rapid transit railways in this country, and many
of those abroad, were visited and the different patterns of cars in
use were considered in this investigation, which included a study of
the relative advantages of long and short cars, single and multiple
side entrance cars and end entrance cars, and all of the other
varieties which have been adopted for rapid transit service abroad and
at home.
The service requirement of the New York subway introduces a number of
unprecedented conditions, and required a complete redesign of all the
existing models. The general considerations to be met included the
following:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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