Steinway Tunnel

This is a good article. Click here for more information.
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Steinway Tunnel
tracks
2

The Steinway Tunnel is a pair of tubes carrying the

Grand Central
stations.

Planning for the tunnel began in 1885 but construction did not start until 1892 due to a lack of funds. The Steinway Tunnel was named for William Steinway, who provided the funding to start the initial construction. Steinway died in 1896 before the tunnel was completed, and the project sat dormant for several years, before the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) acquired the tunnel. The IRT resumed work in 1905 and completed the tubes in 1907 and was briefly opened for trolley service that September. Due to legal disputes, the tubes closed within a week and did not reopen for another eight years.[2] After the Dual Contracts were signed in 1913, the IRT began converting the tubes to subway use, and the tubes opened as part of the Flushing Line in 1915. In subsequent years, specific rolling stock were ordered to navigate the narrow dimensions of the tubes, and the tunnel suffered from numerous floods and fires.

Initial work

The East River Tunnel Railroad Company was founded on February 22, 1885, to construct a railroad tunnel crossing the

New York and Long Island Railroad Company (NY&LIRR), which began planning for the tunnel shortly afterward.[4][5]
: 163 

The tunnel was to begin on the New York side near the

Hunterspoint Avenue. The total cost of the 5.6-mile (9.0 km) tunnel was to be US$11.7 million.[5]: 163 [4] The estimated total cost exceeded the financial capabilities of the company by far. In July 1891, piano maker William Steinway, a major landowner in Astoria, Queens, started to fund the tunnel.[5]: 164  He became a major shareholder and became the new chairman of the company, so the tunnel was named after him.[4] Steinway advised the company to utilize electricity to power the tunnel, believing that the construction of the tunnel would increase real-estate values within the vicinity.[4][6]

The route was finalized in the City of New York in 1890 and in Long Island City by 1891.

formations beneath the river, and there were frequent blowouts and floods.[5]: 164–165  Construction was curtailed following an accident on December 28, 1892, during an attempt to heat frozen dynamite from an 85-foot (26 m) shaft at the corner of Vernon Boulevard, Jackson Avenue and 50th Avenue. An uncontrolled explosion killed five and injured fifty, and heavily damaged numerous surrounding houses.[5]: 164–165 [7] Due to high compensation claims, the company was financially ruined, and attempts to raise additional funds failed because of the stock market crash of 1893.[5]: 164–165 [2] Work was stopped as a result, and it was boarded up. Investors refused to fund the tunnel because they feared that it was unsafe.[5]: 165  Attempts to resume construction were occasionally made until Steinway died in 1896.[4]

The Belmont era

The Steinway Tunnel's Queens portals at left; to the right are the East River Tunnels' portals. Pictured in April 1974.

In 1900, the

New York and Queens County Railway for a similar monopoly in Queens.[4][5]
: 165 

The IRT prepared surveys and plans from scratch.

Van Alst Avenue in Queens. The total cost amounted to $8 million.[4] The city objected to the tunnel project multiple times and after several disasters nearly stopped it.[5]
: 166–167 

The westernmost of the four

shafts for the tunnel was in Manhattan and was numbered #1, while the easternmost shaft, in Queens, was numbered #4. Construction began on July 14, 1905, when shaft #4 was sunk; shaft #2 on the opposite shore was sunk by September 1. Shaft #3 was sunk in the Man-O-War Reef, a granite outcrop in the East River that was expanded and renamed Belmont Island.[4] Four workers were killed in a 1906 shaft accident under Belmont Island.[8] The tunnel was holed through on May 16, 1907, and was completed in September of that year, after 26 months of construction.[4][2] Buildings for the tunnel's construction had been erected on Belmont Island; these stayed up until at least 1918.[9]

Fifty tramcars were made available for operation through the tunnel. They possessed a 42-foot-5-inch (12.93 m)-long and 8-foot-11-inch (2.72 m)-wide all-steel superstructure with double-sided semi-open entrances at the ends. Power was drawn from an iron rail on the ceiling, to which the car roof's 11+3⁄8-inch (290 mm)-high pantograph would attach. The cars were also fitted with rod pantographs for street operation.[4]

The first trolley trip in the Steinway Tunnel was scheduled for September 20, 1907, but was postponed due to a power failure.[2] Shortly afterward,[a] trolley cars ran through the tunnel as part of a demonstration run.[5]: 168  On September 29, 1907, a short circuit on the overhead wires caused a small fire, and the tunnel was shut down.[2] Belmont did not have a franchise to operate a transit line. The concession to operate the tunnel had expired on January 1, 1907, and the city of New York was unwilling to renew the contract. [4] For the next five years, the tunnel, with trolley loops on both the Manhattan and Queens sides, remained unused.[2] In 1913, Belmont sold the tunnel to the city government after the IRT signed the Dual Contracts, which incorporated the Steinway Tunnel as part of the new Flushing subway line.[4][5]: 168 

Subway operation

Vernon Boulevard–Jackson Avenue station, one of three original subway stations in the Steinway Tunnel

Initially, the IRT intended to use the tunnel for trolleys;

roadbed and the rail were determined to be usable for subway service, but even so, the duct banks in the tunnel were replaced. The platforms could be easily extended, and it was also found that the tunnel's width corresponded to the width specifications of the existing IRT subway's car fleet.[4][10]

Work began in 1913,

Queensboro Plaza to be shared by the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company (later the Brooklyn–Manhattan Transit Corporation, or BMT).[4][12]

Meanwhile, the construction work continued on the planned route. To the east of the tunnel, the Hunters Point Avenue subway station went up to the level of the Hunterspoint Avenue LIRR station. Immediately east of it was a ramp up to the elevated subway towards

Flushing, it was found that the loops could not be used for the extensions. The loops on the Queens side of the tunnel were obliterated in the wake of new construction. The loop on the Manhattan side, however, is intact and occupied by maintenance rooms, although the ceiling third rail still exists in the loop. The line from Times Square to Flushing was completed in 1928, when the station at Flushing opened.[4][15]

Since the tunnel ramps towards Queens were significantly steeper than normal IRT specifications, with a gradient of 4%, special rolling stock had to be procured for the Steinway Tunnel line. The

"World's Fair"-type cars, used for the 1939 New York World's Fair, used the same type of gear boxes.[4] With the 1948 introduction of four-motor subway cars of types R12 and R14, the need for a special drive was gone, as the Steinway Tunnel could now be driven by conventional railcars.[4] In 1949, BMT services stopped operating on the Flushing Line east of Queensboro Plaza, and the IRT was assigned exclusive operation of the line.[17]

In subsequent years, the tubes of the Steinway Tunnel were difficult to maintain: they were prone to flooding, and the tube walls were much narrower than other tunnels in the subway system, with almost no clearance on each side of the train.[18] After a train got stuck in the tunnel in 1971, a passenger died of a heart attack.[19] A fire broke out on a train in the tunnel in 1973, killing one passenger and trapping over a thousand in the middle of the tunnel, after the collapse of an archway.[20] In 1991, the tubes were flooded to 8 feet (2.4 m) after a water main broke on the Manhattan side.[21] The next year, an electrical fire in the tunnel melted several feet of steel rail, although the tunnel's exhaust fans were working properly.[22] After Hurricane Sandy-related storm surges flooded the tunnel in 2012, the tubes were rebuilt in a $29 million project that took place between 2013 and April 2016.[23][24] To protect the tunnel from future flooding, two retaining walls will be installed on either side of the tunnel portal in Queens, and flex gates would be installed to prevent water from entering the tunnel.[25] The project is estimated to cost $15 million, and work was scheduled to begin in May 2021.[26]

References

Notes

  1. ^ The New York Times cites September 21 as the date of the first trolley run.[2] while author Clifton Hood cites September 24.[5]: 168 

Citations

  1. ^ a b "First Subway Car in Steinway Tunnel" (PDF). The New York Times. June 14, 1915. p. 15. Retrieved July 2, 2010.
  2. ^
    ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved April 8, 2020.
  3. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved January 9, 2018.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Rogoff, David (1960). "The Steinway Tunnels". Electric Railroads. No. 29. Electric Railroaders' Association.
  5. ^
    ISBN 978-0-8018-8054-4
    . Retrieved August 26, 2009.
  6. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved January 9, 2018.
  7. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved January 9, 2018.
  8. ^ "Four Lose Their Lives in Tunnel Disaster". Los Angeles Herald. January 17, 1906. Retrieved December 20, 2018 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  9. ^ New York (N.Y.) (1918). The City Record: Official Journal. p. 3540. Retrieved May 26, 2020.
  10. ^ New Subways For New York: The Dual System of Rapid Transit Chapter 2: Interborough Routes and Stations. New York State Public Service Commission. 1913.
  11. ^ "Queensboro Tunnel Officially Opened" (PDF). The New York Times. June 23, 1915. p. 22. Retrieved July 2, 2010.
  12. ^ New Subways For New York: The Dual System of Rapid Transit Chapter 1: Dual System of Rapid Transit. New York State Public Service Commission. 1913.
  13. ^ "Fifth Av. Station of Subway Opened" (PDF). The New York Times. March 23, 1926. p. 29.
  14. ^ "New Queens Subway Opened to Times Sq" (PDF). The New York Times. March 15, 1927. p. 1.
  15. ^ "Flushing Line Opens Jan. 21" (PDF). The New York Times. January 12, 1928. p. 12.
  16. ISBN 9780801879227
    .
  17. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved October 7, 2017.
  18. ^ Donohue, Pete (March 21, 2011). "Ancient Steinway Tunnel is No. 1 headache for No. 7 train". New York Daily News. Retrieved April 8, 2020.
  19. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved December 25, 2016.
  20. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved April 8, 2020.
  21. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved April 8, 2020.
  22. ISSN 0362-4331
    . Retrieved April 8, 2020.
  23. ^ Sneider, Julie (November 2016). "Rail Insider-Hurricane Sandy: Four years later, New York City Transit is still fixing, fortifying the rail system. Information For Rail Career Professionals From Progressive Railroading Magazine". Progressive Railroading. Retrieved April 8, 2020.
  24. ^ "MTA Spends $774M on New Technology to Increase Train Service, Reliability on 7 Line". mta.info. Metropolitan Transportation Authority. February 24, 2017. Retrieved May 21, 2020.
  25. ^ "Eye on the Future MTA Contract Solicitations Information About Contracts that Will Be Advertised for Professional Services, Construction, and Equipment Procurement December 2019 – November 2020" (PDF). mta.info. Metropolitan Transportation Authority. December 2019. Retrieved May 21, 2020.
  26. ^ "ET070308 Mitigation: Steinway Portal". mta.info. Metropolitan Transportation Authority. 2020. Retrieved May 21, 2020.

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Steinway Tunnel.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Steinway_Tunnel&oldid=1219922972"