In an unpublished novel written in 1863, entitled "Paris in the Twentieth
Century," which was only discovered and published in 1994, Jules Verne
equipped the Paris of 1960 with an elevated transit system in which the
trains would be powered by pneumatic air pressure. And not to long
afterwards, the real-life Paris had a pneumatic mail delivery system.

Hugh C. MacDougall
Secretary/Treasurer
James Fenimore Cooper Society
8 Lake Street, Cooperstown, NY 13326-1016

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> From: Shirley <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Cool Fact:  Secret Subway
> Date: Thursday, November 05, 1998 2:24 AM
>
> Q.  When was the first New York subway opened?
>
> A.  The first New York subway train was built in 1869-1870 by Alfred Ely
Beach.
> It ran for one block between Warren and Murray streets, and became a
popular
> attraction, ridden by 400,000 people in its first year of operation!
>
> Beach was convinced that a pneumatic (air-pressure driven) subway train
system
> was the right answer to New York's overflowing traffic problems, but he
was
> unable to obtain funds for the project.  He resorted to building the
subway
> secretly, disguised (and funded) as a mail-delivery project.
>
> Unfortunately, a stock market crash made it impossible to continue
development
> of the project, and it was 25 years before New York was to plan a
practical
> subway system.  Beach's pneumatic subway was bricked up and forgotten
until
> 1912, when workers digging a new subway tunnel discovered the old system.
>
> More about the secret New York subway project:
> http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/amex/technology/nyunderground/secret.html
>
>
> Copyright (c) 1998, The Learning Kingdom, Inc.
> http://www.LearningKingdom.com