Читать книгу Abroad and at Home; Practical Hints for Tourists - Morris Phillips - Страница 7
ELECTRIC LINES UNDER GROUND.
ОглавлениеThe Forum last summer printed a very good description from the pen of Simon Sterne, of the new electric under-ground railway in London, and the Sunday Sun last autumn had an elaborate article on the subject, which, with illustrations, occupied nearly a whole page.
It is a quick and convenient means of locomotion, and to accomplish it was a work of wonderful engineering skill for which the inventor, Mr. Peter Greathead, cannot be praised too highly; but the riding is by no means pleasant.
In a lift large enough to accommodate fifty passengers, you descend a distance of eighty feet below the surface—part of the road running beneath the bed of the river Thames. The cars are small and fairly well lighted, but they have an unpleasant vibration, and although the air is not noticeably impure, there is an uncanny feeling with the knowledge that you are burrowing, as it were, in the bowels of the earth.
The road, probably an experimental one, is only three miles long, extending south from “the monument” in the city. It has not, thus far, proved a success pecuniarily, the cost of construction being so great, although no land was purchased except for the stations.