3201. I believe you have looked up a passage from the Report of the Royal Commission on London Traffic, Volume 1, page 72, paragraph 2, reference No. Cd. 2597 of 1905, refering to the diversion of seed rs and pipes. The Report says: "Such diversions are only matters of ordinary engineering --- to diversions as such if sewers and pipes there is no objection, if properly carried out." You looked that point up ; and that is what you read? --- Yes.
3202. Dealing with the question of cost, I suppose at the present time it is rather difficult, is it not, to arrive at an exact figure? --- It is difficult to arrive at even a close approximation.
3203. What do you think would be the cost per yard, as far as you could gather, if a 16 feet 6 inches diameter of tube? --- Taking it at double the cost of the tunneling of the Great Northern and City Tube, which was made a good many years before the War, I should say it would be about £170 per yard run, for a 16 ft 6 ins tube.
3204. That would amount to £300,000 per mile for each single tunnel? --- Yes.
3205. Have you considered the question of ventilation for your tubes? --- Yes; but I do not think it will be necessary in any case to resort to any special means of ventilation; the movement of the trains will itself do that. Furthermore, you must recollect you have not got the ordinary human element present, as you have in passenger tubes; so that you will not get the same vitiation of the air.
3206. Going on to another point, if the London goods stations in time could be eliminated, how would that affect the question of the traffic on what had been called the Midland joint line? --- I am informed that it would reduce the traffic on that line by about 70 per cent, so far as goods trains are concerned.
3207. That being so, even under Clearing House principles you would have less goods trains along it than you have no? ---Yes, but they would be longer Trina.
3208. With regard to the electrical equipment of the locomotives on your tubes, what do you suggest? --- I think it would be a decided advantage to have the same system as the Metropolitan, as the third and fourth rails with direct current of 600 volts, with standard contacts.
3209. You say that because I take it, as you suggested before, a contingency might arise by which you wanted to run over the Metropolitan tracks? --- Yes.
3210. I do not know whether you want to deal with the rails in the Clearing House itself? --- There is really nothing to say. There are simply the 20 tracks side by side in groups, which are indicated here on the plan. Three tracks here, two more here, another two, another three ; and on that side of the Clearing House it is duplicated. These yellow spaces indicate the usual fanning out ; the blue spaces indicate the cross- overs.
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