Queensway

The teakwood and cream enamel Royal Train parked one night last week on a siding near Knowsley Hall, vast Lancashire estate of Edward George Villiers Stanley. 17th Earl of Derby.* There is no other peer with whom the King would rather dine and sit up late over a whiskey-soda. But scowling heavens loosed a cloudburst just as the Royal Train drew in. Terrific thunder claps, incessant lightning and sheets of lashing rain kept Their Majesties aboard the train all night. Next day amid brilliant sunshine Lord Derby was their guest as they chuffed off to open the most exciting feat of British engineering in this decade-Queensway, longest and largest underwater tunnel in the world.

Queensway has cost nearly $40,000,000 and taken nine years to build. Curiosity among Britons to see its insides has been phenomenal. They have bought over $35,000 worth of tickets entitling them to preview peeks. This peek-money has gone to hospitals in Liverpool and Birkenhead, famed cities which face each other across the River Mersey and have now been connected by glamorous Queensway.

Never had Queen Mary looked more regal than when Their Majesties alighted from the Royal Train at Liverpool. Hours before more than 1,000,000 subjects of King George had turned out to pack-jam the sidewalks under a sizzling sun. They roared and thundered an ovation which seemed unique even to the most popular sovereign on earth. All day long the crowds kept it up until the King simply had to tell his people how they had made him feel. He spoke to Lord Derby and Lord Derby spoke to Liverpool newshawks and Liverpool newshawks spoke to the world: "At the end of the day the King told his friend the Earl of Derby that he had never experienced such a demonstration of affection in all the 24 years of his reign."

The demonstration reached a major climax as 50,000 loyal subjects massed before His Majesty who stood with one hand on a switch of gold. The switch would start motors to roll away a great royal curtain of green and gold from the mouth of the tunnel. In solemn, kingly words which thrilled every listening subject throughout the Empire His Majesty christened the Mersey tunnel Queensway after Her Majesty and declared:

"This thoroughfare is great and strange. The wonder of your tunnel will only come into mind after reflection. "Who can reflect without awe that the will and power of men, which in our time have created the noble bridges of the Thames, the Forth, the Hudson and Sydney Harbor, can drive also tunnels such as this, in which many streams of wheeled traffic may run in light and safety below the depths and turbulence of tidal water bearing ships of the world?

"Many hundreds have toiled here and the work of many thousands all over the country has helped their toil. I thank all those whose effort has achieved this miracle.

"May those who use it ever keep grateful thought of the many who struggled for long months against mud and darkness to bring it into being. . . . May our peoples always work together thus for the blessing of this Kingdom by wise and noble uses of power that man has won from nature."

At this prayerful ending a hush gripped the throng. Click. The King-Emperor had closed the gold switch during his speech. Slowly as he spoke the great curtain rolled away disclosing the arched entrance to Queensway. Amid wave on wave of cheering His Majesty drove with the Queen-Empress by his side through the gleaming new arch and down under the Mersey with transatlantic liners riding at anchor over his royal head.

Despite the King's allusion to "struggling against mud," Queensway has in fact been cut in sandstone so firm that the "sand hogs" never had to work under air pressure. In 1925 the chipping was started by Princess Mary with a pneumatic drill. Two pilot tunnels, each 12 ft. in diameter, were cut out from Liverpool and Birkenhead until in 1928 only a thin curtain of stone hung between them in mid stream. Out to chip this down and shake hands under the Mersey went the Lord Mayor of Liverpool and the Mayor of Birkenhead. After that the snug chippers kept on, year after year, enlarging the 12-ft. rock tube to hold cast-iron tunnel sections 44 ft. in diameter. When all the cast-iron rings had been linked together, cement was pumped under pressure into a one-foot space around the gigantic metal tube. Lighting for the tunnel will be divided between two power stations, each illuminating alternate bulbs so that if one station fails, every other bulb will keep shining.

Queensway is 2-1/7 mi. long, or nearly half a mile longer than the Holland Tunnel between New York and New Jersey under the Hudson River. The latter consists of two tubes, with two lanes of one-way traffic in each. Queensway, being a single tube, has four lanes of traffic. Said Queensway's Chief Engineer Sir Basil Mott: "We owe much to experience gained by the Americans in building the Holland Tunnels."*

*Lord Derby's younger son, Oliver, continued the tradition of Stanleys-in-politics by becoming the most recent addition to the British Cabinet. His post: Minister of Labor.

*Flush with a $37,500,000 PWA loan, the Port of New York Authority is hard at work on a second vehicular tube to New Jersey, the Midtown Hudson Tunnel at 39th Street. Eased into place by tugs last week was a bright red. hollow cube of steel as big as an eight-roomed house. After riveters build its steel walls higher, diggers working under compressed air in the lower chamber of the caisson will excavate enough mud to permit the base to settle down 100 ft. below water level. From that point they will dig sideways toward New Jersey.

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