Restful Shuttle

For almost 30 years pampered U. S. Senators have ridden 750 feet underground from the Senate office buildings to the Capitol, first in two rickety storage-battery cars, since 1913 by two monorail electric trolleys. All this time Representatives, who outnumber Senators 435 to 96 and are therefore a traffic problem, have had to walk through their tunnel from the old House offices to the Capitol. Last week, as Representatives were looking feebler than usual after rejecting Reorganization, they learned that Assistant Capitol Architect Horace D. Rouzer had told a House Appropriations subcommittee that Representatives might rest their legs as well as their jaws when they shuttle through the tunnel next year. Commented Missouri's Congressman Joseph B. Shannon: "I've seen many members who had reached 70 or 72 years old, and they just couldn't make the grade. I think it hurried them to their graves."

Because the House subway dodges sewers, water pipes and roots of great elms on the Capitol grounds, it posed engineers a tortuous problem. Solution: an endless belt of aluminum plates strung together on the escalator principle, with enough play to take the curves, and powered by seven dwarf motors. Initial cost of $175,000 seemed staggering beside the $25,000 spent on the Senate trolley, but there were compensations. Annual appropriation for operating the Senate subway, which requires two motormen, is $2,000, while running cost for the moving sidewalk would be only for the flick of a switch, morning and night, and for the electricity. Furthermore, each trip on the shuttle would save a Representative one minute--one and a half if he helped himself along by walking. Total saving to 435 Congressmen in an average of three round trips per day: 3.915 member-minutes. Minutes, say U. S. Representatives, are worth money.

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