The train from yesterday

It took only four years, seven months and three days from the start of the building of New York’s first subway until it opened to the public, 115 years today, Oct. 27, 1904. Irish and Italian immigrants using picks and shovels dug a 9.1-mile railroad with 28 stations from City Hall up to Grand Central, across to Times Square and up to 145th St.

Today, with modern machinery and gazillions of dollars, we can’t seem to get anything done in four years.

Why? History has a lesson. The Interborough Rapid Transit, that very first line, was the brainchild of chief engineer William Barclay Parsons, a Columbia-trained genius who founded Parsons Brinckerhoff, now called WSP, perhaps the top player in what Gov. Cuomo has aptly named the transportationindustrial complex.

Parsons’ IRT was a miracle, still the world’s only subway with local and express service. Local trains were five cars long; express trains had seven cars, with express stops at Brooklyn Bridge, Grand Central, 14th St., 72nd St. and 96th St.

His corporate successors specialize in being behind schedule and over budget.

WSP and the cartel told the MTA that the L train must be closed for 15 months for repairs. It took six engineering professors from Cornell and Parsons’ alma mater Columbia to make a far better plan that kept trains running by placing power and other cables on racks on the tunnel sides.

This afternoon the TA is running vintage trains between Times Square and 96th St. Take a ride to wonder at Parsons’ foresight and consultants’ tunnel vision.