New Subway Turnstiles

One hundred years ago today… the Interborough Rapid Transit Company introduced the new “Feather-weight pressure gate”–its newest turnstiles–for the stations of the downtown Lexington Avenue line (now the 4-5-6) at 77th, 86th, 110th, and 116th Streets. The machines replaced the traditional “ticket-choppers” (people stationed to cut into passenger tickets).

Subway posters proclaimed the development:

The I.R.T. had started experimenting with a nickel-slot turnstile the previous January at its 51st Street station, as we reported here.

The Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company had similar turnstiles in place at several stations as well, since earlier in the year, according to the Eagle:

The new turnstiles, though, could accept other coins besides nickels, which helped I.R.T. President Frank Hedley defray suspicions that the turnstiles meant that the controversial 5-cent fare was permanent

"These machines can accept a nickel or any other sized coin. They are time savers and prevent people from standing in line. Their installation at this time has no significance in so far as the rate of fare is concerned.” (“I.R.T. TO INSTALL NICKEL TURNSTILE,” Standard Union, 20 November 1921, p. 10).

More were on the way: 

It is expected that 1,000 will be required to meet the needs of the entire east and west sides. At the rate of thirty-three passengers a minute, Grand Central will be able to handle 924 passengers a minute, as it will have twenty-eight turnstiles. Thirty-three passengers a minute is based on tests made at the 51st Street Station.

(“Subway Turnstile Introduced Today” Evening World, 25 November 1921, p. 1).

The weekly Electric Railway Journal, a trade publication, featured the news in its November 26 issue.

The article credits “Frank Hedley, president, and J. S. Doyle, superintendent of equipment of the Interborough Rapid Transit Company,” as inventors of the turnstiles, which were being manufactured by the “the National Pneumatic Company, the Columbia Machine Works & Malleable Iron Company and the Westinghouse Air Brake Company.”

– Jonathan Goldman, Nov 25, 2021

TAGS: subway, train, transit, public transportation, infrastructure, labor, inventions, technology