File:The story of rapid transit (1903) (14597054140).jpg

Identifier: storyofrapidtran00willrich (find matches)
Title: The story of rapid transit
Year: 1903 (1900s)
Authors: Willson, Beckles, 1869-
Subjects: Local transit -- History
Publisher: New York : D. Appleton and company
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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hat the multiplicity of trafficoccasions the most inconvenience, it is alsowhere the need for the rapid transit of goodsand passengers is most marked. Yet so effectually had public enterprise andcapital in Great Britain centred in the steamlocomotive and the railroads in connectiontherewith, that for thirty or forty years followingurban transportation was sadly neglected, and,particularly in London, facilities for rapid move-ment left much to seek. Prior to the construc-tion of the Underground Railway, rapid transitin London was represented by the omnibus,first started July, 1829, and the hackney coachor cab. But in the interval the Americans had long STREET RAILWAYS 183 perceived the merits of the street railway systemin accelerating- the movements of the urban pop-ulation. In New York, the Fourth Avenue (Har-lem) Street Railway \vas chartered in 1831, andfor twenty years maintained a monopoly of thestreet railway traffic, after which a general ex- :-: d i ;\ Ill • : . i V jji/pj^l
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The First Omnibus. tension of the system followed in the large cities.Philadelphia and Boston opened street railwaysin 1857, and from that period to the present thegrowth of street railways in America has beenso wide-spread that more than 500 towns andcities are equipped with this means of rapidlocomotion. As we shall see, although horsetraction was in the first instance resorted to, 184 THE STORY OF RAPID TRANSIT yet this was, in many instances, succeeded bythe cable system, and latterly by electricity. In 1858-59 an enterprising American, GeorgeFrancis Train, obtained permission to establishseveral short street railways in England. Butthe rails were of a most objectionable and incon-venient form, their projecting flanges making itdifficult and even dangerous for ordinary vehi-cles to cross the line save at right angles to the /V irtff filUe ntrr~f N»r <-W^V-<™» ( ^~. -J

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