treets, permits
of establishing a double-track railway capable of giving passage
to ordinary rolling stock and of connecting directly with the large
lines, others, objecting that such a road could not give satisfaction
to the taste of Parisians, and that it would necessitate work out of
proportion to the advantages gained, conclude upon the adoption of an
open air railway.

Preferences generally are evidently for this latter solution.

We have received from a learned engineer, Mr. Jules Garnier, a
project for an elevated railway, which appears to us to be very ably
conceived, very well studied out, and which we hasten to make known.

(1.) The system is characterized by the following fundamental points:
The up and down tracks, instead of being laid alongside of each other,
as in an ordinary railway, are superposed upon two distinct platforms
forming a viaduct, which is consequently so arranged as to permit of
the laying of one of the tracks at its lower part and of the other at
its upper.

(2.) The system of constructing the viaduct is so combined as to be
capable of giving passage upon the road to the rolling stock of the
large lines during the stoppage of the daily passenger trains.

(3.) The tracks are connected at the extremities by a curve that has
the proper incline to compensate for the difference in level between
the two, and which has a sufficiently large radius to allow the slope
of the track to be kept within the limits admitted. The running of the
trains is thus uninterrupted.

(4.) When two lines of different directions bisect one another, a
special arrangement permits the passengers from one line to pass to
the other by means of what is called a "tangent" station, without
the trains of one line crossing the tracks of another, the purpose of
which arrangement is to avoid those accidents that would inevitably
occur through the crossing of a track by the trains of a transverse
line.

(5.) The rolling stock is arranged in a manner that allows the
entrance and exit of the passengers to be effected with great
promptness.

In ordinary avenues, comprising a roadway and two sidewalks, the
elevated railway is placed in the axis of the roadway at a sufficient
height to prevent it interfering with the passage of carriages, say
14 3/4 feet above the surface, while in boulevards or avenues of great
width, having _contre-allees_[1] bordered by a double row of trees, it
is installed in one of the _contre-allees_