Hull An Elevated River Frontage Railway.

From The Kearney Files
Port of Hull Monthly Trade Review December 1920

AN ELEVATED RIVER FRONTAGE RAILWAY


Mention has frequently been made in this journal of the need of a high - level railway to afford rapid and continuous communication along the 6 or 7 miles of Hull's rock frontage, with the eventual prolongation from Needle to Paull, where, in both directions, Riverside works, &c., are bound to develop within the next 10 years or so. What appears to be the most suitable scheme presented in which we reproduce in this issue.

By reference to the drawing it will be observed that the Kearney structure offers little offence to the aesthetic eye and considerably reduced the obscuration of light compared with an ordinary overhead railway. The design as shown comprises :-

Two longitudinal girders in spans of 60 ft. each supported on twin columns placed at a minimum distance of 12 ft. apart in cross section.
The girders may be arranged to give any desired head room, but in the drawing reproduced 16 ft. clear headway is shown.
The rails supporting the weight  of the trains are laid upon longitudinal timber sleepers which are in turn laid on top of the main girders.
The standard for the guide rails and slider wires are placed immediately over the twin columns which are spaced at intervals of 60 ft. Astor surface track.
While allowing for a larger factor of safety than in ordinary practice, this structure, complete with guide rails and supports, will be found to be at least 30 percent. lighter than the elevated structures of New York and Chicago, or the Liverpool Overhead Railway.

The following is an estimate of the cost for an elevated double track Kearney railway :-

                                                                                     Per mile.
Columns, girders,rails, ties, stanchions each  ..... £44,000
Slider wires, cables &c each ........                              £2,000
                                                                                        -------------
Total cost of structure and equipment.                  £46,000

Stations :-

Single Centre Platforms, each.                           ..... £1,600
Two Outside Platforms,  each.                           ..... £4,000

Mr. Kearney paid a visit to Hull last month on his way to London from Glasgow, where the City and Port Authorities have had on exhibition a working model of a Kearney railway, which has excited great interest in the Scottish port, which like Hull, is in need of improved local communications.
It was Mr. Kearney's first visit to Hull, and he was not a little astonished at what he was not a little astonished still at not seeing modern means of communications between the two shores of the Humber !
In conversation later with one of the leading men in the city, he expressed his suprise that no attempt had been made within two generations to link up two such important areas as East Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire at a point where the third port of the U. K. was situated. Mr. Kearney sees no difficulty in putting tubes under the Humber bed, his own schemes of communications under river beds are strongly advocated by the highest authorities, and one example under the Thames at Woolwich is likely shortly to be commenced.