THE ROADTOWN PLAN OF CONSTRUCTION
The first problem in making a village or a city house is the excavation
for foundation and cellar. In the case of isolated houses the cellar is
dug by hand labor and dirt carried away by horse-drawn carts. Witness
the difference in method between such excavation and that of a canal,
the grading of a railroad or any other project that is to be made in
line. In the latter case the steam shovel replaces the spade, and the
work train, the dump cart.
Those familiar with city subway construction will at first think the
idea of a railway in the basement is an expensive luxury. But the
excavation of the Roadtown basement should be compared with the New
York State canal, not the New York Subway.
_To be Built of Cement._
The Roadtown will be built of cement, fire proof and vermin proof.
Modern so-called fire proof buildings are frequently destroyed by
fire. This is because they contain combustible material. If material
in a large building gets on fire and through stairways and air shafts
sets fire to other combustibles, the whole building is heated to the
ignition point.
The horizontal Roadtown house, only two stories high, cannot be
destroyed in this fashion. Even if a Roadtown were built of Carolina
pine, it would still be a safer fire risk than modern fire proof
buildings in cities. A fire raging in a continuous house could as a
last resort be stopped by two sticks of dynamite. In the city the fire
line must be fought on all sides of an ever enlarging circle. Dropping
this theoretical point we can say that the really fire proof Roadtown
can be made at a fraction of the cost of making a building of similar
enclosing space semi-fire proof, which experience has shown is the
best that can be done with city buildings of the box or tower type.
The Roadtown very likely will not carry fire insurance nor maintain
a fire department, as every house will have a fire hose which can be
instantly applied. The frightful expense and loss of life (and recently
the source of graft) that our present civilization suffers because of
fire, will be told to the Roadtown children as we now tell about Indian
massacres.
Roadtown will be proof against the “cyclones” that are the evil
genius of country life in the South and West. As for earthquakes, San
Francisco’s experience proves that reinforced concrete is the best
earthquake resister known.
Any building material may be used, but we will here consider cement,
poured into moulds, as a standard.
Thomas A. Edison, whose efforts at perfecting a method of molding
complete houses by pouring cement into molds, has attracted world-wide
attention, has donated to the Roadtown the use of his cement house
patents.
The Roadtown, like the railroad, will get much of its building
material, such as sand and stone, along the right of way, and haul it
to its place in the structure on the railroad which will be the first
part of a Roadtown to be constructed. Thus the expense will be greatly
reduced.
Wagon hauling and hand mixing, the heaviest items of expense in cement
construction, are entirely eliminated in Roadtown where the concrete is
mixed and poured from a machine located on a work train.
_The Railroad will be Noiseless._
The essential of the Roadtown being the combination of transportation
and house construction, the Roadtown if invented in any age before the
present one would have been worthless. The horse-pulled vehicle or the
steam or gasoline engine would be a nuisance in any part of a building
used for a dwelling. Electrical transportation, on the other hand, is a
perfectly refined method of locomotion and well suited for indoor uses.
Of the various systems of transportation devised and now available, I
believe the Boyes Monorail to be the most applicable to the needs of a
continuous house, and I have prevailed upon Mr. Boyes to donate the
use of his patents to Roadtown.
This wonderful invention was perfected after many years of intense
application by a thorough mechanic and electrician. It has been
demonstrated and found to be thoroughly practical and is far in advance
of either the present two-railed electric railroads, or the Gyroscopic
types of Monorail cars which have lately attracted considerable
attention because of their seeming disregard of the law of gravity.
The Gyroscopic Monorail, at a great expense and complication,
eliminates one rail, but there is no particular gain in so doing, in
fact there is a distinct loss for the thing that limits the speed of
the ordinary electric car, is the loss of grip on the rail, and in the
Gyroscopic Monorail the bearing surface of the steel wheels is reduced
to just one-half that of the ordinary car.
The Boyes Monorail uses the principle of the gyroscope used in the
Brennan Monorail with a difference that where the Brennan gyroscope
acts as a top the Boyes Monorail is kept true by the heavy drive wheel
which acts on the principle of a hoop or rolling wheel. The Boyes train
is made in short cars or sections rigidly coupled together with rubber
padded couplings. Each car or section rides on a single concave leather
faced wheel that runs on a broad convex steel rail. This wheel is set
up within the body of the car, thus permitting the car to straddle the
track.
There is a door on either side of each eight-foot car or section, which
is opened and closed electrically. Only six people enter at a doorway,
thus eliminating all delays and jams at crowded stations.
The leather faced wheel grips the track to such a great degree that
it is practicable to build the cars as light per passenger as is the
bicycle, thus giving great efficiency and power. A train of the Boyes
type to carry the same passengers as the subway cars of New York,
weighs one-thirtieth as much. The power is electrically fed to the
train from a small “third” rail.
_Speed Possibilities._
I hesitate to make any predictions as to the speed attainable in the
Boyes Monorail. As is generally known, the world’s speed records are
now held by automobiles, not railway trains. The record to date is
about one hundred and thirty-two miles an hour made by Oldfield, at
Ormond Beach, Florida. It is the traction grip in the rubber tired
wheel that makes this speed possible. The Boyes car will have this grip
and instead of sand to run on will have a rail from which it will have
to jump thirty inches to be derailed. The car cannot skid, jump the
track nor upset. It does not carry the weight of its power creating
apparatus. It has no heavy parts but the single wheel and its casings.
The inventor states that with the power now used on the New York Subway
trains a Boyes train carrying the same number of passengers will attain
the speed of two hundred and fifty miles an hour. I recently asked an
automobile manufacturer what, at present, set the limit on the speed
autos. He replied, “The nerve of the driver.” The bearing parts of the
monorail can be made many times the strength required for the speeds
intended and thus reduce accidents from broken parts to a minimum. I
have asked a number of engineers to give me a reason why the speed
predictions of Boyes could not be attained. One replied, “It’s never
been done.” Another said, “Municipal politics.”
Because I have spoken in favor of the Boyes Monorail I do not wish the
reader to infer that the development of the Roadtown depends upon the
progress made by this invention. We have noiseless electric automobiles
to-day and noiseless bicycles that serve well to demonstrate the
feasibility of building a noiseless service for the purpose of Roadtown
and such a later system will indeed probably be installed in the first
demonstration section. No man of a mechanical turn of mind will doubt
for a minute that noise in transportation can be eliminated where it is
desirable to do so.
The Roadtown transportation system will be in the cellar. This idea
will at first seem strange, and many people will suggest that it be
put above ground thinking thus to save expense and have the “view.”
I think a little explanation will show that the basement is the only
logical location for the Roadtown transportation line.
If it is above ground it will have to be fenced off or elevated to
prevent loss of life. If it is fenced it will keep people from the
land. If it is elevated the stations will be expensive and an eyesore.
As for the idea of a view, we can say that the Roadtown railroad is not
for sightseeing any more than an elevator in a hotel. If placed beside
the house line it would destroy the natural “view” and privacy of the
home, and the roof is reserved for a better use.
The basement is clearly the only logical place to have the monorail
where it will be absolutely convenient and yet free the house from
the nuisance of living beside an elevated railroad track. The expense
of the basement, where steam shovel and work train are utilized, as
already explained, will be comparatively small, and the house above
will provide a continuous covered passageway from the door of one’s
apartment to the station. As for ventilation, which is a puzzling
problem in city subways, it will be solved by a continuous opening made
by building the house three or four feet above the ground; the Roadtown
trains will therefore run in a covered trench rather than in a subway.
Because of the rail straddling plan the Boyes car must be entered from
both sides. Three tracks will be required and these will be arranged
one beneath the other. The reason for this is obvious: if arranged
side by side, passengers would have to climb up the height of the car
and down again. Arranged vertically, they need climb only up or down.
Because the distance from rail level to car floor level is practically
eliminated in the Boyes car, this climb will be but seven or eight
feet instead of twelve as with present train service. The upper track
will be for local service. Passengers will walk from their house along
a continuous platform or hallway to the local stations, which will be
located about 100 yards apart. The object of having definite stations
or stopping places is simply one of gaining speed by having the people
in groups. The platform will be continuous and the trains can be
stopped at any house desired if there be a good reason for so doing.
About every five miles there will be an express station. Here the
people will climb down eight feet, or sixteen if going the opposite
direction, and board a train that is not bothered with frequent stops
and can hence make very high speed.
The following is a sample specification of Roadtown train service
as submitted by William H. Boyes, using the Boyes Monorail System
at a speed of only ninety miles per hour. Line from New York to
Philadelphia, ninety miles. Daily traveling population, one to a
family, 250 per mile, 11,250 to go each way. 3,916 per hour for three
rush hours. Speed, ninety miles per hour; time of round trip, two
hours; trains five minutes apart; stations, five miles apart. Trains,
twenty-four; seating capacity per train, 336; capacity of express
service, 4,032 hourly. Local trains oscillating between express
stations each to carry 224 passengers per hour, eighteen required.
This specification submitted by Mr. Boyes gives a remarkably small
equipment for the traffic handled compared with present figures. The
chief difference is due to the high speed. There are many who will not
believe that a ninety-mile schedule will be maintained, not so many
perhaps as would two years ago have refused to believe that man could
fly from New York to Philadelphia, an account of the accomplishment of
which lies on my desk as I write. For those to whom seeing is necessary
to believing, the speed above may be cut in half, which will then be
about that in the New York Subway. The express trains will then run on
a two-and-a-half-minute schedule and twice as many will be required,
but the cost will still be much lower than present day commuting
service and efficient enough to make the entire Roadtown from New York
to Philadelphia as accessible for commuters as is now a suburban home
fifteen miles from New York and a half mile from the railroad station.
The single train on the local track will make a round trip between
express stations about every fifteen minutes. Those near the middle
of the section will catch the train going in either direction, as the
time for the express to travel the distance of one express station is
negligible. In each Roadtown home there will be an electric buzzer
which, when the switch is so turned, will announce the approach of a
train in sufficient time to allow one to get to the station. The buzzer
will have two distinct sounds, one for trains in either direction.
Roadtown parcels, such as are not cared for in a small mechanical
carrier described in Chapter VI, will be hauled on the local trains.
Roadtown freight service will be at night on the express tracks, the
trains stopping at stations located at suitable distances and distinct
from the passenger stations. At these freight stations there will be
elevators or inclines delivering freight to or receiving it from the
land outside, while furniture, etc., for the houses will be elevated
to the platform above and carried on the very early trips of the local
trains to one’s door.
Wrecks on such a railroad system can only occur from actual breaking
of some working part, a comparatively rare cause of present wrecks.
The local track collision cannot occur as there is only one train in
a section. On the two express tracks, “tail-end” collisions will be
prevented by a block system that turns off the power automatically when
trains approach within a certain distance of each other. This system is
in operation in the New York Subways.
_The Street Upon the Roof._
Private stairs from each home will lead down to the monorail platform
and up to the roof. In the center of the roof will be a promenade which
will be covered, and in the winter enclosed with glass panels and steam
heated. On the outer edges of the roof will be a path for bicyclists
and skaters, who will use rubber tired roller skates. The monorail,
which is the business transportation system of Roadtown, will be placed
out of sight and run at high speed, but the roof promenade will be the
“street” for recreation and pleasure. In winter the promenade will be a
continuous sun parlor; in summer a shaded walk. There will be benches
in alcoves along the way and occasional towers over the promenade and
tower effects along the edges of the roof beyond the cycle paths or
some other architectural effects to break the monotony. These towers
will be used as coöperative centers, such as stores, cooking and power,
recreation, schools, nurseries, etc. The tower effects are matters of
architectural ingenuity, and many architects are already interested in
finding ways to lend variety and beauty to the Roadtown as they have to
our existing public ways.
Certainly no street or boulevard in the history of the world was
ever more uniquely located. The splendid view to be obtained from
such a promenade in a dust-free and smoke-free country can hardly be
pictured to a city bred man or a countryman jogging along the hedge
and weed throttled country road. The view across the near gardens and
more distant grain fields, and back over woods and hills to the dim
line where land meets sky, will cure forever a score of Latin-named
diseases which the eye specialist tells us come from gazing through
the dust-laden street or across the dingy court into our neighbor’s
kitchen window.
It is upon the roof that the Roadtown will be upon dress parade. Here
maids with their lovers will stroll of evenings and matrons with their
baby carriages on Sunday afternoons. It is here that children will
have never ending sport. Skating and cycling can have an unprecedented
opportunity to develop for health and pleasure. It is here that Easter
hats will be shown and neighbors’ crops discussed and new acquaintances
made and local pride developed.
The question naturally arises as to the sound of conversation from the
roof reaching the living-rooms or the sound from the rooms reaching the
roof. The cement walls are practically sound proof and for sounds to be
heard from roof to house or house to house requires that it pass into
the open air and bend through a 180 degree angle. Sound does not travel
in that way as one may readily prove by trying to shout around the
corner of a ledge of rock or over a stone building. With all windows
and doors wide open in the Roadtown home, the only sound of ordinary
magnitude to be heard will be from the singing of birds and the play
of children in front of the window. The uncanny noise of city streets
and of quarrelsome neighbors across the air shaft will be missing.
People who cannot content themselves with the quiet of a Roadtown home
will have to use the telephone, electric music, roof promenade or go
to the social center. Promenaders cannot stare into nor listen at
their neighbors’ windows. The Roadtowner’s home is his castle in the
truest sense of the word, and more private, notwithstanding the close
proximity to neighbors, and hence more consecrated to family life than
any previous style of dwelling known.
The Roadtown will have no streets because it will need none. As it is
built through the country, there will, of course, be roads as well as
streets to cross. Here the monorail will run under, and the roof bridge
over the roads. At such road crossings and such other places where
roads are built back into the country, stables and garages will be
provided.
The natural desire to drive one’s own vehicles up to the door of his
own house will cause an occasional remonstrance against the plan at
first, but as people find that there is no need of such roadways they
will come to consider the Roadtown road crossings as their front door,
when viewed from the auto or equestrian’s standpoint, and no more think
of the necessity of a private roadway to their own house than that of
having their auto sent up the tenth story of an apartment house.
Those who wish to pay a visit to a Roadtown home will come to the
nearest point where the railroad crosses the Roadtown or if traveling
by horse or auto where the public road crosses the Roadtown and will
leave their vehicle in charge of a caretaker and have their name
’phoned in as one does at an up-to-date apartment house or hotel. If
the Roadtowner is at home, the caller will then take the monorail or
the roof promenade as the distance or his inclination dictates, and
thus reach the door of his friend’s home.
Such a system will give the humblest Roadtowner the opportunity of
the high class apartment house dweller to say that he is not at home
to unwelcome visitors, and yet the Roadtown home built on the ground
floor with its windows looking out into a private garden will have all
the home-like simplicity of a cottage, and at the same time modern
conveniences and luxuries which cannot be found in any King’s palace.