Quoted By:
>The structure was modelled on Paxton's own Crystal Palace. A glass-roofed arcade 72 feet wide and 108 feet high would cover a central roadway. Between the City and Regent's Street the roadway would have been lined with shops, while in Brompton and other areas of west London there would have been private residences. Behind the shops and residences, there would be two levels of narrow-gauge atmospheric railway tracks on each side, one for fast trains and one for slow trains.
>Atmospheric railways had failed in the past, but Robert Stephenson, usually sceptical about the system, had assured Paxton that they would be practical in these more controlled conditions. A double wall would insulate the residences from the noise of the trains. Existing streets would cross the roadway on the level, with the railways running uninterrupted above." People, I find", Paxton said "will never go much above the ground, and they will never go under ground". The structure would be dry, well-ventilated and easy to maintain—being under cover the road would never become muddy. The same basic cross-section would have been used for the river crossings as for the parts across land creating inhabited bridges – Victorian equivalents of Old London Bridge.
>The walls of the arcade would be faced in ceramic tiles. Its glass roof would keep out the polluted atmosphere of London, and promote a healthy circulation of air. In the section across Kensington Gardens there would be no shops or houses, and the arcade would provide a place to exercise in bad weather.
We need this /n/
