The Morning Call from Paterson, New Jersey • 10

THE PATERSON MORNING CALL, THURSDAY, JULY 19, 1928. TEN Ready to Open New River Street Station ERIE ELIMINATION WORK FACTS AND FIGURES Railroad Overcomes Many Difficulties and Expends Large Sums in Raising Tracks Here New Office Building May Be Erected of the elimination project to date. Not that it was any more difficult than some of the other bridges, but the whole structure makes an impressive appearance to the eye of the layman, especially on approaching it from the north. Big Change at. Fulton Street.

"This bridge cost us $73,000, and the entire Job, including street work. $11,000." said Mr. Derr. "and sixty per cent of it is being paid by Paterson." Questioned as to the reason for this. Engineer Derr said: "As you know, the grades of the street and railroad were already separated before we started our grade crossing work and the Erie was under no obligation to build a new bridge.

But the old bridge created a bad traffic situation In these modern days and through agreement with the eity we planned to erect the structure that you now see." SBBBBBBBBW JIMEsBb! BBBBBBBBBBBf I agfafM I (Continued from page 1. column 6) served a a station for the past year and a half. "The returns from the River street station are hardly' worth the money we have put Into it," asserted Mr. as he pointed to Responsible for Big Job Before the Improvement, the bridge span was only fifty feet and Fulton street, where it is Joined- iy Straight street, intersected the railroad right of way at a ninety-degree angle Now there is a street opening 105 feet wide and the Intersect the stucco exterior the maple floors and the birch trim, for not more than 160 commutation tickets are sold monthly. A view Knowing now the Erie railroad lias carried Ita tracks across River street.

At the left Is the new Hirer Street station which Is to be opened within a few days. To the right, bat not included In this picture, the bridge also crosses over Warren street. The total length of bridge work at this point Is 4S feet and the project cost a quarter of a million dollars. But the state public utility commission would not permit the abandonment of tha station and so the railroad made the beet of It and has pent $12,000 on the foundation and $8,000 additional for the station building. The platforms on either aide of the track are each 1,000 feet long, accommodating a twelve-car train, and they are lighted with sixteen standards of the latest design cluding the erection of a new Market ing angle has been reduced to sixty degrees.

Straight street, from the bridge to the Katx brewery, was also widened ten feet and the old cobblestones re-surfaced with asphalt. Right here, too, there was a pretty little Job done on the paving work which, because of the Intersection of the two streets with the railroad crossing and the grades involved, had to be planned so that girder and the cost Is correspondingly reduced. Only one bridge has bten constructed without the curb-line girders and that is at Governor street which cost $40,000. At this print, the railroad Is twelve fee! higher than the old grade although the average lift throughout the work BBataflHHevBa jF LpJ HssbbI LsnW SBESBBBBBBt sKhI 1 BBBBna. I JftB ESfi? 4bbbbbbbbb9K iM storm water would be properly die It Is a bit of work that no 1 sixteen to seventeen feet.

posed of Street Widening Needed. And while talking about River street at this point! there la a situation that is worthy of attention by the rlty authorltlea River street Is thirty feet wide between curfex but It widens out under the railroad trestle to forty-four feet. Vehicular traffic coming down the bill and under the bridge toward the center of, the city naturally widens' out to two lanes while going under the Costly to Private Firms. The elimination project has been costly to business and industry along the riglit of way where switches had to be raised to meet the new level of the main line tracks. The railroad one would think of noticing unless attention was drawn to U.

The massive girders on the Straight-Fulton street bridge are ninety-eight feet long and weigh forty-four tone apiece. Beat Materials Used. street station, but it is Interesting to note in passing that the Erie otfin ili ate contemplating a new Market street station which Resident Engineer Derr predicts will be the "finest of Its kind." May Erect OSJce Bonding In fact, there still remains a strong possibility that the Erie may put up an office building ha conjunction with its new station. The office building proposition was discussed about three years ago and was believed to be "ail set" when the Van Sweringen Interests took over control of the Erie The Van Sweringens contemplated a msrgitr of their own Interests with tha Brie and if that had gone through It was natural to expect that the principal business of the cdrepany would bs centered in the Middle West But the Interstate commerce commission threw a monkey wrench Into the merger scheme and while the Van Sweringen brothers control the Erie, It Is still a separate entity and now there Is new talk about a combined office of Its new bridges for a four-track road In the future. When that is done, It le going to mean complete rehabilitation of a number of private plants.

"It may be five or fifty years," was the way in which put It The city of Paterson has to be-, share of the expenae, Including the re-location of all sewer pipes and the re-gradlng pnd re-paving of streets where the grade has been changed to conform with the new railroad elevation. All of this work has been done by the railroad and the cost charged against the city which so far has paid out Two indirect Accidents. Description of the Erie's work would not be complete without men tlon of the Parker Graham company which has had the outside construction contracts for all the work done to date. While there have en two casualties since the project was begun, neither occurred during ie crossing elimination operations. One of the bridge men left the camp car after his day's work was Cine, tell through the Essex street trestle and was killed.

Another man was fatally Injured at tne loading plant but at time when the contractor's materials were being moved away to another-Job and the death was not chargeable to the railroad work. There Is still plenty of time to talk about the abandonment or fh eepfff crossings at Market Ellison, Van Houten and streets mid hi Trondway and Hamilton avenue. In Michael Nolan, trainmaster, left, who keeps the trains operating on schedule, while Captain Orvllle V. Derr, right, resident engineer, super-vises the Erie railroad's grade crossing elimination work In Pateron. haa borne the cost of such work on Its own right of way, but the Interstate commerce commission will not let it do more.

As a result for Instance, there Is a concrete trestle which the Van Kirk company had to have built at an outlay of something like $30,000. It was a ticklish Job bf cause it had to be built on a curve of 17S feet radius, which Is too sharp for an engine to negotiate, and every time there-are cars to be delivered to the Van Kirk yard the trainmen must hook on eight or ten "reach-era" between the engine and the cars destined for delivery. Other concerns have had bear similar expenae, although not quite so large, all along the line. Some switches have been built on Erie's own right of way because lack of space on private property but where the business or Industrial concern has not been required to meet this expense now, there will come a time when thev will have to The Erie's undertaking. It will be recalled, was started only after the city of Paterson had carried Its rase to the United States supreme court.

So the railroad ia not spending any more money than it has to, but In fairness to the Erie ft must be eald that the materials that have been and are being put Into the work are of the best. The bridges may not be of as fine appearance, aesthetically, as Paterson citizens would like to see them, but they are constructed In the best engineering manner and the finest materials are being need throughout the entire project, such as 110-pound open hearth stsel rati and frogs with manganese steei centers that cost four times the ordinary railroad track frog. So. It Is that where the city plan commission would have liked the Erie to build Its trestles without cur hll ne girders, the railroad has (Continued on Page IT, Column 1) Erie's Grade Crossing Elimination Costs to Date and finally had to be moved by sheer man-power. The other time an engine left the rails on a temporary track.

The Men In Charge. That's a record for any engineer to ahoot at and the men responsible for It are Orvllle Derr, resident engineer In charge, and Michael Nolan, trainmaster for the Patarson section while the project is under way and who, incidentally, is a native of Paterson. It's up to Derr to get the Job done. Nolan's responsibility Is to keep the trains on schedule. Two tasks that are diametrically opposed to each other, but Derr's and Nolan's minds run ao closely together that there are few slip-ups.

In fact not more than the two Just mentioned. Few laymen can realize what this means. On a section under reconstruction, all traffic In both directions, including through passenger and freight trains as well as yard switching, must bo handled on one track at a time. First It is operated over one track of the old bed while the other Is being elevated from twelve to seventeen feet. When the one side of the new elevation la completed, trains are switched over to it and then the engineers tackle the work of bringing the old track up to the level of the new.

A ull In the Work. At this writing, it so happens that both eastbound and westbound tracks of the Erie are In operation for the entire length of the main line In Paterson for the first time In a year and a half. It Is an In-between period while one section is being completed and another started. I Sections and "A-l." between River street and Hamilton avenue, were declared officially finished last Sunday, July 15, while the Madison avenue crossing comprising section will he gotten under way as aoon as a new contract Is awarded, which wl be about Aug. 1.

The Madison avenue crossing where the street will be carried over the tracks, haa been started, technically, with the dumping of earth on the eaat approach of the proposed viaduct, although actual construction of the bridge will not begin for a few weeks. The grade crossing elimination work now being carried on is not a new story to Patersonlans for It has been under way for the past four years and already ten new railroad bridges have been built over street grades. It Is more than two 4 since the railroad completed the first section to he tackled, Including the crossings at Clay and Straight streets. Twentieth avenue and Essex street. Walla Are Costly Items.

But the actual finishing up of section from Montgomery street to River street and section "A-l" from Montgomery street to Governor street Is only of recent date. The bridges along this stretch have, to the public eye, been completed for several months but there still haa been a lot of work to do and It was only on July 2 that the eastbound track on the higher elevation was opened, putting both tracks In operation for the first time since April II, lilt. These two sections were declared officially completed on July II. Resident Engineer Derr revealed bridge. At Warren street, the roadway shrinks back to thirty feel, creating a "neck of the bottle" effect at the corner of Warren atrcel that Is an Inducement to accidents The north corner of River and Warren streets could well be sliced off so as to make an easier reduction of the River street roadway width.

Next to the River-Warren street trestle comes the Keen streq structure of the same -general type aa most of the bridges In the project It cost $34,000. Franklin street has been closed to vehicular traffic across the railroad's right of way. the city having traded this crossing for Montgomery street which heretofore came to a dead end at the railroad. But In order to accommodate many citizens whose homes are on one side of the railroad and their places in Industry on the other, the railroad has built at the expense of the city of Paterson a pedestrian subway at Franklin street that cost $10,000. The subway is ten feet wide, twelve feet high ana sixty-nine feet long and Is the result of a demand from citizens of the district.

Sectional Costa. The Lafayette street crossing has been eliminated at a price of $21,000 und the county is re-paving over the oid cobblestones between River street and the railroad and between BEAUTIFUL HAIR lustrous, (inwtns. rich, tniok aair by ntrtng soap and Oriental wnsMe nee st CONST AN TINE'S miss Haauas PINK TAB SOAP C. S. Co M(rm.

Wart mm Cnm seen fit to hulld the bridges or 'his f1 fn.ee it for the Erie has planned nil type. They require a lesser spat By the time the Erie railroad's grade crossing diminution work In Paterson ia completed, It la eatimated that the compuny will have expended from $1,000,000 to $7,000,000 over a period of eight years, fome of the cost items to date are: Section River to Montgomery street 688,000 Section A-l, Montgomery street to Hamilton avenue 38X.U00 Section Clay to Essex street 1.654,000 Total $2,730,000 Individual Bridge OosMngs. Governor street 40,000 Fulton-Straight streets 73.000 Montgomery street 33.000 Lafayette street 2,000 Franklin street pedestrian subway 10,000 Keen street 34,000 River street 135,000 City of Paterson's share to July IS, 1921 $396,195 Summer street and the tracks. The Montgomery street bridge cost but the expense was technically divided by the railroad between section and section "A-l." Section takes In the stretch between River and Montgomery streets and work thereon cost $111,000. Section "A-l" comprises Montgomery street to Hamilton avenue, including Fulton and.

Montgomery streets and it was responsible for the expenditure of $388,000. Section "A-2" will run from Hamilton avenue to and Including Market street and taking in the Hamilton avenue, Fair street, Broadway, Van Houten street and Ellison street crossings, but it will not be reached before the fall of liti or ofter the Madison avenue viaduct has been completed. regards the Fulton- Straight street bridge aa the "pet" street where bridge work was erected over a length of 445 feet to carry the railroad tracks over both Warren and River streets, a nasty Job because of the sharp angle at which the Erie's right of way Intersects River street. A cool quarter of a million dollars was spent here. The bridge itself, cn which there are alx girders over River street weighing sixty-six tons apiece and eighty-four feet long, cost $135,000.

The new River street station, on the eastbound aide, and Its platforms, accounted for $35,000 more while $85,000 was expended In changing the grade of (liver and Warren streets and on damage claims paid to nearby property owners In River and Putnam streets of which the latter amounted to $35,000. New Station Ready. The River street station la to be opened probably the latter part of this week and Ticket Agent Charles Fetoer will be glad to get back in permanent quarters once again for he haa been working under a handicap In the temporary shed that haa some Interesting facta and figures In the course of an inspection trip between Hamilton avenue and River street. Take the Item of concrete retaining walla. That one down In Straight street running approximately between Governor and Fulton streets took 141,000 out of the Erie's cash coffers, but even with a golden opportunity to regain some of that expenditure by leasing the spac for advertising posters, the Erie, under its new policy promulgated by President Bernet, haa already refused to permit Ita desecration.

Other retaining walls, which are necessarily big Items In the elevation of railroad tracks, are responsible for auch pretty figures as 121,000, $18,000. 113.000, 154.000 (twice) and $41,000. River Street Improvement. The most Impressive Job along the line of the Improvements Is at River No roach can live CLEAN gasoline. SAFE oil today's motois need them LAUTER'S Tears of Dependability $195 in yonr home 9 Don't you hare rone he the dirty little pests that scamper swsy when yoa turn on tha lights! Flit spray will rid your house of them.

It searches out the cracks where roaches, bed busji and ants hide and breed, destroying their eggs. Spray roaches directly with Flit, They may run away but die later from the effects. Fatal to all house' hold insects, hsrmleas to you. Will not stain. Do not confuse Flit with ordinary Insecticides.

Greater killing power Insures satisfaction with FuL One of the largest corporations in the world guarantees Flit to kill Insects, or money back. IVry Flit perform much better with dean Pan-Am gasoiine. Unusual care in refining has removed the dirt and carboor-fot-mfng elements found in many gasolines. That means a cleaner motor less carbon trouble NOW i more than ever before motors need the extra protection mat Pan-Am oil gives. They operate at speeds that de-velop terrific engine heat Heat that soon thins and breaks down ordinary motor oils.

and a Flit sprayer today. and a rllt sprayer today. Pan Am motor oil is safe because it is refined from paraffin base crudes that produce a tougher oil. Thus it holds ita body, mile after mile a a a keeps the hottest friction spots safe from de- more power and mileage PU1 up today at the first Par Am pump you see. Yost can be sure of honest service from any Pan-Am dealer.

And yoa know that the products he seHs are produced and da tribwted by one rentable a if you spray PLATER PIANO $2 WEEKLY $2 structive RADIOS Fada, Kolster, Radiola, Your modern car will also HFL Majestic, Atwater Kent STIto wOose aS Mac bond tJWiexican 'Petroleum Corporation Abo distributors of KIP mstctidd, SEMDAC st poMsb mmd SUPFJRXA cmdim Open Evenings Laiiter Piano Co. 185 Main Street LbbbHR tV jjjjgitesX': mm.