Popular Science Monthly 



245 



New York Trains That Play 

 Leap Frog 



AVERY interesting traffic situation 

 occurs on the long and attenuated 

 Manhattan Island, which makes only one 

 express track necessary. In the morning, 

 New Yorkers travel southward to the 



they are known technically, the local sta- 

 tions are situated. 



The reason for the leapfrogging is ob- 

 vious. There are three tracks in service 

 already on the elevated line, but the third 

 track could not be used for express serv- 

 ice unless the trains crossed over and on 



Passengers riding on the express trains on 



the new " L" tracks will be reminded of 



the "roller coasters" at Coney Island 



down town business sections, and in the 

 evening return northward to their homes. 

 In order to relieve the swelling traffic 

 on the elevated lines in New York city, 

 an ingenious method of track-laying has 

 been resorted to. A horizontal view 

 of the completed structure would bear a 

 strange resemblance to the roller coaster 

 railroads so much in evidence in nearly 

 all of America's amusement parks. Near- 

 ing a station, the express trains for which 

 the new track is being designed, rise 

 swiftly on an incline, so that they play at 

 a modified, mechanical game of leapfrog. 

 Under the raised tracks, or "humps," as 



At each express station, the new tracks 



rise above the level used by the local 



trains 



the local tracks to take on and discharge 

 passengers. This would involve delay 

 and a serious possibility of accident, due 

 to the failure of engineers to obey sig- 

 nals. 



The stations selected for the express 

 stops are either reinforced or renewed, 

 and the middle track is raised abov.t 



