A Century and a Half of Subways
BY AWAKE! CORRESPONDENT IN HUNGARY
THE tunnel diggers gazed in disbelief at what they had uncovered. The year was 1912. Deep beneath the streets of New York City, while excavating an extension of the newly built subway, they had broken into a large hidden chamber. The room was magnificently furnished—like a palace! Along its length were mirrors, chandeliers, and frescoes. Wood paneling, crumbling with age, still adorned the walls. In the middle of the room stood a decorative fountain, its bubbling long silent.
The room led to a tunnel. To the workers’ astonishment, there sat a graciously decorated 22-passenger subway car on its rails. Had there been another subway under New York before the one they were digging? Who could have built this place?
Tunnels and Underground Railways
Underground passages have been in use for mining, supplying water, and military exploits for thousands of years. Mechanized underground transport of passengers, however, came about much more recently. In the early 1800’s, thoroughfares in London, England, were choked with every imaginable type of contemporary vehicle, not to mention pedestrian traffic. Thousands crossed the Thames daily, either by ferry or over London Bridge. At times, progress was so slow that merchants could only watch helplessly as the produce they were trying to get to market withered in the sun.
Marc Isambard Brunel, a French engineer living in England, had an idea that would eventually help to alleviate some of London’s transportation troubles. Brunel had once observed a shipworm working its way through a piece of hard oak. He noted that only the head of the little mollusk was protected by a shell. The shipworm used the serrated edges of its shell to bore through the wood. As it progressed, it left behind in its burrow a smooth protective coating of lime. Applying this principle, Brunel patented a large cast-iron tunneling shield, to be pushed forward through the ground by jacks. As workers removed the earth from inside the shield, the shield would prevent collapse. As the shield progressed, other workers would lay bricks on the inside surface of the new tunnel to support it.
Using his shield, Brunel successfully completed the world’s first underwater tunnel through soft earth, under the Thames, in 1843. In doing so, he demonstrated the feasibility of tunnel construction and prepared the way for the development of modern subways. In 1863, the world’s first subway system opened between principal railroad terminals in London, and in 1865, Brunel’s tunnel was purchased to expand the system. That tunnel still forms part of the London Underground.
Fears—Imaginary and Legitimate
Subterranean transport has never been without its opposers. In the 1800’s many people, believing that a fiery hell lay somewhere inside the earth, feared going underground. Additionally, many people associated dark, dank tunnels with contagion and a poisonous atmosphere.
On the other side of the issue, city planners had become passionate in their desire to do something about congested urban roadways. Subways became a major topic of political debate. There was reason for concern regarding subway air quality. Various ventilation schemes were tried out, not all successful. Some took advantage of the air movement produced by the trains; others had vertical shafts with street-level gratings at intervals, powerful fans, or systems combining methods. To counter the psychological barriers to entering dark, underground passageways, stations were outfitted with gaslights. Against such a background, the forgotten New York subway that workers stumbled across in 1912 came into being.
New York’s First Subway
Across the Atlantic from London, another talented inventor, Alfred Ely Beach, puzzled over the equally dire traffic situation in New York. As the publisher of the journal Scientific American, Beach was a promoter of modern solutions to old problems, such as clogged streets. In 1849 he offered a radical plan: “Tunnel Broadway,” one of the most congested streets, “with openings and stairways at every corner. This subterranean passage is to be laid down with double track, with a road for foot passengers on either side.”
During the following two decades, other transportation developers also presented rapid-transit proposals for New York. All of these were ultimately voted down. Corrupt political strongman Boss Tweed did not want any competition with surface transportation companies, the source of much of his illegal income. But the resourceful Mr. Beach, who had never abandoned his idea, outwitted the boisterous Boss.
Beach obtained a legal franchise to construct a pair of adjacent tunnels, too small for transporting passengers, under Broadway. These were to serve “for the transmission of letters, packages and merchandise” to the main post office. He then applied for an amendment allowing him to build just one large tunnel, purportedly to save expense. Somehow his ruse went unnoticed, and the amendment was approved. Beach went to work immediately but out of sight. He dug from the basement of a clothing store, removing the dirt by night with wagons having wheels muffled for silence. In just 58 nights, the 312-foot [95 m] tunnel was finished.
A “Rope of Air”
Beach was very conscious of the gagging pollution in the London subways, a result of using coal-burning steam engines. He impelled his car with a “rope of air”—the pressure from a huge fan built into an alcove on one end of the tunnel. The air gently pushed the car along at six miles [10 km] per hour, though it could have gone ten times faster. When the car reached the other end of the line, the fan was reversed to suck the car back! To overcome people’s lingering hesitancy to venture underground, Beach made sure that the spacious waiting room was abundantly illuminated with zircon lamps, among the brightest and clearest then available. And he furnished it lavishly with plush chairs, statues, curtained false windows, and even a grand piano and a goldfish tank! The little line was opened to an unsuspecting public in February 1870 and was an immediate, stunning success. In one year, 400,000 people visited the subway.
Boss Tweed was furious! Political maneuvering ensued, and Tweed persuaded the governor to approve an opposing plan for an elevated train costing 16 times as much as the pneumatic underground system proposed by Beach. Shortly thereafter, Tweed was indicted, leading to his imprisonment for life. But a stock-market panic in 1873 turned the attention of investors and officials away from subways, and Beach finally sealed up the tunnel. So it rested in oblivion until it was accidentally unearthed in 1912, more than seven years after the opening of New York’s present subway in 1904. A portion of Beach’s original tunnel later became part of the present City Hall Station, in downtown Manhattan.
The Millennium Underground Railway
A little more than a century ago, there was an air of anticipation in Hungary. In 1896, Hungary was to celebrate the 1,000th anniversary of its founding. By the end of the 19th century, the country’s capital, Budapest, would be among the largest cities in Europe. Already its streets were overcrowded. A surface electric railway was proposed for the millennium celebration, to lighten the load. But the idea was not what the municipal authorities were looking for, and the proposal was rejected. Meanwhile, the London Underground had excited the imaginations of transportation planners in other countries. One such expert in Hungary, Mr. Mór Balázs, put forward the idea of an electric subway. This was approved, and construction began in August 1894.
The subway was built using the cut-and-cover method—an existing roadway was dug up, and rails were laid below street level. A flat roof was then built over the trench, and the roadway was replaced. On May 2, 1896, the 2.3-mile [3.7 km] subway was inaugurated. A ride in its individual electrically propelled cars was a great improvement over the sulfurous experience endured by riders on the first London Underground! A few days after it opened, King Francis Joseph I visited the new system and approved its being named after him. During the politically stormy times that followed, however, the line was renamed the Millennium Underground Railway. It was the first subway on the European continent. Soon, others followed. In 1900 the Paris Métro went into operation, and Berlin began subway service in 1902.
The Underground Railway After 100 Years
For Hungary’s 1,100th anniversary in 1996, the underground railway was restored to its original beauty and style. Tiny white tiles and wine-red ornamental borders decorate the station walls. Station names stand out—framed in tile on the wall. The iron pillars have been reconstructed and are painted green to evoke the atmosphere of the past century. The central station of Budapest includes a railway museum, where you can see one of the original subway cars—over 100 years old! Exhibits relating to the construction of the Millennium Underground Railway as well as the more modern Budapest Metro are also on display.
When visiting the museum, Jehovah’s Witnesses in Hungary cannot help but recall that not long ago the underground railway had quite another function for Christians living here. All through the time that their work was banned in Hungary, Witnesses discreetly used the stations of this famous railway to talk to others about God’s Kingdom. Since 1989, the Witnesses have enjoyed freedom to preach in Hungary. But you may still find them in the Millennium Underground Railway, sharing their belief that the Millennium described in the Bible—the 1,000-year rule of Christ—will soon arrive.
The Legacy of the First Subways
Today subways ferry passengers underground in major cities around the world. In some the old problems of noise and air pollution have been joined by the challenges of graffiti and crime. But many systems reflect the gracious, aesthetic, and practical ideals of early subway designers. The desire to expand and improve mass transit remains strong. Subways have recently been completed or are under construction in such cities as Bangkok, Medellín, Seoul, Shanghai, Taipei, and Warsaw. Would the first subway designers be surprised at all of this? Perhaps not—such widespread use is exactly what they foresaw a century and a half ago.
[Pictures on page 23]
1. A restored station in Budapest’s Millennium Underground Railway Museum
2-4. One of the 1896 Millennium Underground Railway’s original electric subway cars