Tunnel Engineering: A Museum TreatmentVogel, Robert M.
History
Tunnel Engineering: A Museum Treatment
Vogel, Robert M.
Tunneling -- History
[Illustration: Figure 41.--LOCATION OF HUDSON RIVER TUNNEL. (_Leslie's
Weekly_, 1879.)]
After the accident, work continued under Haskin until 1882 when funds
ran out. About 1600 feet of the north tube and 600 feet of the south
tube had been completed. Greathead resumed operations with a shield
for a British company in 1889, but exhaustion of funds again caused
stoppage in 1891. The tunnel was finally completed in 1904, and is
now in use as part of the Hudson and Manhattan rapid-transit system,
never providing the sought-after rail link. A splendid document of the
Haskin portion of the work is S. D. V. Burr's _Tunneling Under the
Hudson River_ published in 1885. It is based entirely upon firsthand
material and contains drawings of most of the work, including the
auxiliary apparatus. It is interesting to note that electric
illumination (arc, not incandescent, lights) and telephones were used,
unquestionably the first employment of either in tunnel work.
[Illustration: Figure 42.--ST. CLAIR TUNNEL. View of front of shield
showing method of excavation in firm strata. Incandescent electric
illumination was used. 1889-90. MHT model--1" scale. (Smithsonian
photo 49260-D.)]
THE ST. CLAIR TUNNEL
The final model of the soft-ground series reflects, as did the Hoosac
Tunnel model for hard-rock tunneling, final emergence into the modern
period. Although the St. Clair Tunnel was completed over 70 years ago,
it typifies in its method of construction, the basic procedures of
subaqueous work in the present day. The Thames Tunnel of Brunel, and
Haskin's efforts beneath the Hudson, had clearly shown that by
themselves, both the shield and pneumatic systems of driving through
fluid ground were defective in practice for tunnels of large area.
Note that the earliest successful works by each method had been of
very small area, so that the influence of adverse conditions was
greatly diminished.
The first man to perceive and seize upon the benefits to be gained by
combining the two systems was, most fittingly, Greathead. Although he
had projected the technique earlier, in driving the underground City
and South London Railway in 1886, he brought together for the first
time the three fundamental elements essential for the practical
tunneling of soft, water-bearing ground: compressed-air support of the
work during construction, the movable shield, and cast-iron, permanent
lining. The marriage was a happy one indeed; the limitations of each
system were almost perfectly overcome by the qualities of the others.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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