The method of handling the work adopted by the contractor was, broadly speaking, as follows: Excavation was usually carried on by modifications of the top-heading and bench method, the bench being carried as close to the face as possible in order to allow the muck from the heading to be blasted over the bench into the full section. The spoil was loaded into 3-yd. buckets (designed by the contractor and hereinafter described), by steam shovels operated by compressed air, and hauled to the shafts by electric locomotives. Electrically-operated telphers, suspended from a timber trestle, hoisted the buckets, and, traveling on a mono-rail track, deposited them on wagons for transportation to the dock. Arriving at the dock, the buckets were lifted by electrically-operated stiff-leg derricks and their contents deposited on scows for final disposal. The spoil was thus transported from the heading to the scow without breaking bulk.
When concreting was in progress, the spoil buckets were returned to the shafts loaded with sand and stone. The concrete materials were deposited in storage bins placed in the shafts, from which they were fed to the mixers located at the foot of the shaft about on a level with the crown of the tunnels. The concrete was transported to the forms in side-dump, steel, concrete cars, hauled by the electric locomotives.
Electrical power was adopted largely on account of the restricted area at the shaft sites, where a steam plant would have occupied considerable space of great value for other purposes. The installation of a steam plant at the Intermediate Shafts, which were located in a high-class residential district, would have been highly objectionable to the neighboring property owners, on account of the attendant noise, smoke, and dirt, and, in addition, the cost of the transportation of fuel would have been a serious burden. Except for the forges and, toward the last, the steam locomotives, not a pound of coal was burned on the work. The use of the bucket and telpher also eliminated most of the objectionable noise incident to the transfer of spoil from tunnel cars to ordinary wagons at the shaft sites. Power plants were installed at the North Shaft near First Avenue and at the rear of the 33d Street Intermediate Shaft.