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Illinois Tunnel Company
| Name | Illinois Tunnel Company |
| Ortssitz | Chicago (Ill.) |
| Art des Unternehmens | Güterverkehrs-Tunnelbahn |
| Anmerkungen | Erbaut durch die "Illinois Telephone Construction Company", deren Tochtergesellschaft die "Illinois Tunnel Company" war. Unternehmensleitung: Albert G. Wheeler, Präsident; George W. Jackson, Hauptbetriebsleiter und Chefingenieur. Betrieb ein Netz von über 100 km Tunnelstrecken uter fast allen Straßen der Chicagoer Innenstadt mit 149 Elektrolokomotiven und über 3.000 vierachsigen Wagen. Ca. 12 m tief liegende Tunnel mit Ei-Querschnitt (b= 1,8 m, h= 2,3 m), Spurweite: 2 Fuß = 610 mm. Seit 1912 unter der Firma "Chicago Tunnel Company" (s.d.) |
| Quellenangaben | Wikipedia |
| Zeit |
Ereignis |
| 1899 |
Baubeginn |
| 20.02.1899 |
Die "Illinois Telephone and Telegraph Company" erhält die Genehmigung für den Bau und die Unterhaltung von Tunneln für Telefonzwecke. |
| 1906 |
Fertigstellung |
| 1909 |
Die Baukosten (bisher 30.000.000 Dollar) treiben das Unternehmen in den Bankrott. |
| 1912 |
Umfirmierung in "Chicago Tunnel Company" |
| Produkt |
ab |
Bem. |
bis |
Bem. |
Kommentar |
| Güterverkehr in Tunnelbahn |
1900 |
Beginn |
1912 |
Umfirmierung |
|
Zeit = 1: Zeitpunkt unbekannt
| ZEIT | 1904 |
| THEMA | Allgemeines |
| TEXT | Transportation and sanitation, these are the great problems of Chicago. The solution oí the first is the removal of the tremendous congestion upon the surface of the streets, caused by the immense congregation of people and vehicles in a small space. To understand this it must be known that the great mass of traffic and teaming for business purposes is practically confined to a square mile in the heart of the business district, "the loop," as the resident designates the space bounded by the elevated structure occupying Van Buren street on the south, Lake street on the north, Wabash avenue on the east and Fifth avenue on the west. Over this structure are operated all the cars of all the elevated roads, each of them, through a score of stations, discharging thousands of pedestrians hourly into this district. This, in a community of 2,241,000 souls, all of them at sometime or other drawn into the "loop" for business or pleasure, presents a phase in transportation difficult even to appreciate unless understood through experience. Again, it must be realized that within this so-called "loop" are the great retail shops, the hotels, the theaters, the newspaper offices and the sky-scraping office buildings, some of the latter sheltering 10,000 people in their daily vocations, and visited each twenty-four hours by as many more. And all this time within the "loop" is
the traffic?street cars, trucks, delivery wagons, the carriages of the pleasure seekers, and those most essential
vehicles, the ambulances, police and fire apparatus. In the problem of sanitation are two important considerations - purity of water and purity of air. In the building of its great sanitary canal and its work upon a vast system of intercepting sewers, Chicago promises to solve the first question. As yet but slight progress has been made towards clearing the atmosphere. Soft coal is burned in this city. The gigantic office buildings use thousands of tons of screenings in their furnaces, and not only do the chimneys belch forth darkening clouds of oily smoke and cinders, but the dusty loads of coal are trucked along the thoroughfare in open wagons, while the residue of ashes is taken away and carried through the streets, a goodly proportion to be blown into the eyes and nostrils of the pedestrians before it is dumped at some outlying point. Surrounding this "loop" section and situated as if for the purpose of accentuating the gloom, are the termini of the railroads. East, west, north and south, the visitor is confronted with depots and yards. Belching volumes of soft coal smoke, the locomotives add to the nuisance, and no matter which way the wind blows, Chicago, in its business district, the habitation of its energy and its spirit, is smoky, gloomy, dirty. But the solution is at hand, and, like every solution to a great problem, it is simple, as simple as a hole in the ground. As a matter of fact, a hole in the ground is the solution. In exact truth it is just this - the conduit of the Illinois Tunnel Company. From 1899 has been the expansion which to-day means that the successor of
the original corporation, the Illinois Tunnel Company, not only has the first granted privilege, but the right to construct tunnels which may be utilized for freight-carrying on a basis which is a marvel to the world. Aside from all else, the telephone operations of the Illinois Tunnel Company are marvelous even in this day of perfection and
progress along the lines of mechanical ingenuity. Already installed and in working order within the business district of the city are ten thousand automatic instruments, furnishing subscribers instantaneous service, absolutely secret and without the intervention of human operators. It is, in a phrase, "a girlless, cussless, out-of-orderless" system, enabling patrons of the telephone to secure immediate communication without the intervention of a third party. It is a conversation-carrying device which protects the user. It makes possible the secrecy of a long-distance talk, for with this system there is no "breaking in," no "cutting out," no "listening jn," none of the annoying features of the manual board system. It insures a conversation against the eavesdropping of a third person, and its operation is quicker and simpler than that of the telephone with which it competes. In addition to this, it is capable of unlimited expansion, is never out of order and during the period of its installation has received no adverse criticism from its users. It is a factor, too, in solving the problem of transportation, because it enables people to conduct the most important conversations between distant points, assured of accuracy of transmission, and so removes the necessity of travel when an important confidential conference is desired. It is a further factor in the manufacturing world, for the company controls the great factory wherein the telephones and telephonic devices are produced. And this output is not confined to the operating territory in Chicago alone, for in many cities of the country automatic exchanges have been established, while there is a constantly growing demand throughout the land - so much of a demand that the present capacity of the works,
already large, is unable to keep pace with unsolicited orders. But this sphere of the work of the Illinois Tunnel
Company, important as it is, interesting as it appears, valuable as it may be in the commercial sense, is pygmy
when contrasted with the stupendous principal undertaking of the corporation. Beneath Chicago, their tops 24 feet 6 inches below the surface, are the tunnels. With walls of concrete, fashioned after the shape of a horseshoe, they form a network of subterranean streets under the surface in the business district of the metropolis. More than this,
the tunnels go beneath the river to the north and west divisions of the city, and, under the terms of the grant from the municipality, may be extended until the entire territory of Chicago is undermined for the furtherance of the useful purposes set forth in the license. With the methods of building this work, which is at once a wonderment to layman and engineer alike, it is not the purpose of this article to deal. The exigencies of time and space prohibit a narration of the manner in which the first shafts were sunk, how thousands of men and hundreds of teams were employed on the work, which was pushed to completion almost before the citizens of Chicago knew what was being done. It is the purpose to set forth the accomplishment and to tell something of the ends which are to be attained. For when it is all completed, and the work of the projectors is finished, the great problems of transportation and sanitation in Chicago will have been solved. After the tunnels were constructed under every street, with the necessary connections beneath the river so that all divisions of the city may be reached in the expanding system, permission was granted the Company by the municipality to conduct a general transportation business. This comprehends the carrying of mail, newspapers, packages, merchandise, coal, lumber, grain and every conceivable sort of freight. The additional license or grant also permits the company to use the tunnels as termini for the transfer of freight from the steam railroad cars to the cars of the tunnel company, and deliver this freight through the tunnels and into the basements of the buildings throughout the city. The magnitude of this latter phase may be better
understood when it is realized that Chicago is the greatest railroad center in the world. More than thirty-five per cent of the entire mileage of the United States terminates in the mile and one-half square which includes the business center of the city. The cost of teaming to and from the railroad terminals in this territory was, in 1903,
considerably in excess of 50.000.000, this sum representing a much larger expenditure than is earned by any
of the railroads entering the territory. An examination of the plat (included herein) will how that the railroads have acquired practically all the property that may be secured for terminal uses. Because oí the terminal locations in the congested districts of a great city and the consequent accidents, many of them of a serious, if not fatal character, constantly occurring at grade crossings, the city council of Chicago forced the elevation of the tracks, and this almost immediately reduced the capacity of these terminals from twenty-five to fifty per cent. With the reduction of terminal capacity comes the increase of trucking requirements, and today it may be safely estimated that 30,000 teams are in use within the already over-congested business district. It must also be understood that the teaming and trucking service is practically crowded into a time limit of from eight to nine hours, and this in the busiest part of the city's busy day. Furthermore, this service may not be depended upon entirely, for while it is endurable and fairly satisfactory when weather conditions are good, a great proportion becomes useless in bad weather, delays are incurred, and long, annoying detentions are resultant, thus inviting further confusion and congestion on the following fair days. This, however, is not all. The cost of operating and maintaining the trucking business in the streets is of vital importance. On the estimate of a conservative statistician the total investment in trucking rigs within the city is placed at 57,000,000. The cost of maintaining this immense establishment is becoming too expensive, and merchants are seeking a relief which involves a fixed charge per year on the handling of their tonnage, without investment on their part. The teaming interests have, without question, reached their limit.
They have taken the streets, they have placed every horse in service that it is possible to use, they have advanced their charges, they have co-operated with every one with whom co-operation is possible, until pedestrian and merchant, receiver and shipper, find themselves not only helpless but utterly swamped. It is this condition that the Illinois Tunnel Company will change. To begin with, the service is increased from eight or nine hours a day in fair weather to twenty-four hours in all kinds of weather. Instantly the capacity of the terminals is increased by at least one hundred per cent. But this is not all, nor the most important from the point of view of good government. The first consideration is the welfare of the people. In New York and other cities the solution of the transportation problem is to put the people underground and reserve the surface for traffic. The saner and more desirable way is to reverse this and keep the people, who wish quick and safe locomotion, in the air and in the light. The mechanical and commercial side of life should be put underground. The streets ought to be preserved to the
pedestrians. In the plan of the Illinois Tunnel Company the ungainly, unsightly and awkward things, the parcels,
freight, coal, and merchandise, are sent underground, to the advantage of the general public, which is given the
sunshine and freedom of the thoroughfares. In the designing of a proper system for the transportation of merchandise through the tunnels so as to care for any increased business and relieve congestion, these facts had to be considered:
First?The strength of any railroad as to the tonnage which may be handled by it depends upon its side tracks.
Therefore, as the Illinois Tunnel Company is limited as to the space it could occupy in the streets with absolute
safety to the buildings, a size was adopted which would permit, if necessary, a side track to be constructed on
each side of the main tunnels, which are built in the middle of the streets, forty feet below the surface. From
a glance at the plat it will be observed that there are nine streets leading north and south and ten streets leading
east and west in the business or congested district. As the tunnels are constructed, this makes a railroad of
nine tracks wide north and south, with room to place two sidings on each track, while east and west the tunnels
are similar to a railroad ten tracks wide, each track being sufficiently apart from every other to permit two sidings
in each street. In the picture showing an intersection of two streets it will be seen that at least one hundred
loops may be utilized by trains in which to pass around every block, thus multiplying the carrying capacity of
the tunnel trains.
Second: It must be remembered that ninety per cent of the freight the railroads carry has to pass through the
car door, and that everything which passes through the freight car door can be taken through these tunnels. Next it becomes important that the standard car adopted should go into the basements of any building without cost of alteration to the property holders, if they are to receive freight through the tunnels. The tunnels are equipped with a No. 56 rail, laid in a concrete roadbed and cast-iron chairs, without ties, over which steel cars, each having a capacity of seven tons of coal, or twenty-four barrels of flour or sugar, may be transferred by electric locomotives, having a capacity of 8,000 pounds, draw bar pull. The connections with buildings where freight is to be
received and delivered is made by means of an elevator on which the cars are run and then elevated to the basements of the buildings from the level of the tunnel. The same method is to be adopted with many of the railroad terminals, while other railroad terminal connections will be through an incline with a nine per cent grade, where the rack system, used by railroads in mountainous countries, will be used. There is a difference in the system, however, in that the cogwheel used on this rack system will transmit the electric current from the rack to the electric locomotives. The trains will run direct from the tunnel up the incline to the railroad yards and transfer freight from the railroad cars across the platform to the cars of the tunnel company. But very few of the buildings of Chicago have been built on pile or caisson foundations, but since these tunnels have been built the leading architects of the city have directed their attention to designing all new buildings so that they will go down to the floor level of the tunnels. This lower space is to be used as subbasements or underground freight yards for the buildings. As new buildings are being constructed at the present time, one of the very practical uses to which the
tunnel system may be put is being daily demonstrated. In the making of excavations, instead 'of lifting the earth
to the street and carrying it away in wagons to the discomfort of all pedestrians in the vicinity, the soil is being
passed down into the tunnel, loaded into the electric cars and transferred through an incline shaft to the Lake
Front, where it is used to fill in the new Grant Park. A moment's consideration of this feature will satisfy any
one of the great advantage to be obtained. Not only is a great public improvement materially assisted, but the streets are relieved of the unsightliness, the dirt and the disorder usually attending a considerable work of
excavation. Another most important feature of this character is that comprehended in the carrying of coal. In 1902 there were delivered by horse power in Chicago 8,000,000 tons of coal, most of it bituminous and all of the deliveries attended by the discomfort incident to the carriage of such freight through the streets. With the old trucking system but one day's supply was delivered to the big office buildings, and, as is well known, the streets are frequently choked by the coal traffic alone. Under the tunnel system this will all be done away with, the coal will be delivered underground, the ashes will be removed in the same way, and the health of the municipality subserved by the removal of much of the dirt and dust unavoidably connected with such deliveries. On the score of economy alone this method of transportation will appeal to the owners of buildings, for the coal will be delivered direct to the furnaces and the ashes taken away with the minimum cost for handling. In Chicago approximately 100,000 tons of freight are handled daily. It will be put underground in a manner that is at once economical to the merchant and satisfactory to the pedestrian. Already the newspapers are editorializing upon the relief to be effected when the
system is in complete operation. There is a cry against the ear-splitting and nerve-racking hubbub which envelopes the business district throughout the day. Heavy trucks upon cobblestone pavements are a prolific source of racket, and so long as they remain upon the surface will continue to be a nuisance. This nuisance the underground tunnel system of the Illinois Tunnel Company will eliminate. And the system, capable of an expansion which can hardly be dreamed of at this time, will do more towards the relief from congestion and noise and dirt. It will enable the railroads to move their freight terminals to the limits of the city, affording them opportunity to utilize the present terminals for passenger and express service, the freight being brought to the distributing center underground. It will practically solve the smoke problem, for with the changing conditions, the railroads entering the business districts will eventually do away with the steam locomotive, that most fruitful source of smoke, and substitute electric motive power. Better suburban service will be provided, and with the streets cleared of traffic wagons, the dust and dirt and smoke largely abated, the unsightly functions of commercialism transacted beneath the surface, Chicago will present a new aspect and become a city celebrated for its cleanliness and beauty, as it is now famous for its grime and street congestion. And all of this will tend to increase commercial activity, because the business of transportation will be conducted at the minimum cost, without delay and without the annoying features with which it is now attended. With the longest tunnel system in the world, with a plan of operation which will relieve the streets of traffic congestion, with a telephone system which assures absolute secret service and instant communication, the Illinois Tunnel Company stands before the world today as the most remarkable of the public service corporations. |
| QUELLE | [Am. Inst Elect. Eng.: Chicago electrical handbook (1904) 97] |
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