Intercom
Duke University Medical Center
VOLUME 24, NUMBER 23
JUNE 10,1977
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA
Supported by a Cushion of Air
Rapid Transit System To Link Two Hospitals
By Joe Sigler
PRT.
Those initials have been on the
lips of people involved with Duke
Hospital North for the past couple of
years, but now they're beginning to
take on a meaning for everybody
here.
PRT stands for Personal Rapid
Transit, the automatic transportation
system that will link Duke Hospital
South with Duke Hospital North.
Enclosed cars supported by a
cushion of air will travel along a
guideway between the two
hospitals.
The system is being designed and
installed under a $5 million contract
with the Otis Elevator Co.
Work Underway
Grading work for the guideway
already has begun, and perhaps the
most visible evidence is outside the
entrance to the Emergency
Department. About half of the
original emergency driveway and
parking lot has been fenced off for
construction of the lobby for the
Duke South terminal of the PRT.
Very soon grading work will begin
closer to Duke North, and the
i I
A RIDE, ANYBODY?—This is an artist's conception of what a passenger vehicle on the
PRT (Personal Rapid Transit) system will look like as it passes the Seeley C. Mudd
Building in the background on its guideway between Duke Hospital South and Duke
North. The guideway will be finished this year and vehicles will be tested on it
beginning in early 1978.
wooden ramp to the Seeley G. Mudd
Building will be removed. (Intercom
will carry an illustration showing
alternate pedestrian routes to the
Mudd Building.)
The two-track PRT guideway will
all be on one level and will be
completed by the end of this year. It
will begin at ground level where the
lobby is being built near the
emergency entrance and it will be
elevated as it proceeds toward Duke
North across a deep ravine between
the Mudd Building and the Bell
Building.
Enroute it will pass through, at
ground level, the Edwin A. Morris
Qinical Cancer Research J^uilding.
From Duke Hospital North, the PRT
will go under Erwin Road to a Duke
parking garage being constructed
across the intersection of Erwin and
Fulton roads from the new hospital
site.
Transportation Ready
Before Hospital
The $92 million Duke Hospital.
North, now about midway in its
construction, is scheduled to open in
the spring of 1979. The trans
portation system between there and
the present hospital is to be
completed and ready for testing by
early 1978.
(Continued on page 7)
Vacations Coming
When the last school bell rings
today, the vacation season will be
underway.
A special vacation section on
pages 4 and 5 may help you with
your plans and will tell how you
can win a prize when you return.
Stars for Everyone^ Good Health for Kids
There may have been more
autographs signed than putts
missed, but no one remembered to
count.
You could find the celebrities
easily by looking for a cluster of
people.
If they had given a Pied Piper
Award, Jack Albertson probably
would have won it. Youngsters not
only clustered around him, but
followed him everywhere.
Hank Aaron would've been in
contention for that award, too. And,
as usual, he was unchallenged for
long ball honors.
Large and Small Galleries
Just like in other golf tournaments.
THE MAN SIGNS
UP—Jack Albertson
pauses between
holes to sign auto-
graphs for
youngsters at
Duke's Children's
Classic, the annual
celebrity golf
tournament which
raises money to
combat children's
diseases.
large galleries followed a couple of
the entrants. They were Chi Chi
Rodriguez, the one celebrity who
readly is a golf expert, and Dr. Perry
Como (he received an honorary
Doctor of Humane Letters degree
from Duke this spring), the toumey's
honorary chairman.
Magician Mark Brenner had a
"small" gallery. A few kids carried
his clubs, and he performed magic
for them, just as he had done on
EXike's pediatrics wards Saturday
before.
Actor Greg Morris smiled at a lot
of babies and kissed a number of
ladies. He said he was as amazed as
anyone at the ingenious devices
invented by Barney, the chMacter he
played on "Mission: Impossible."
Truly Universal Group
Former astronaut Jack Swigert was
the only one there who had flown
around the moon. Poise on the green
came easy for the command module
pilot of the almost ill-fated Apollo 13.
Mr. McFeeley (David Newell) and
Purple Panda came over from Mr.
Rogers' Neighborhood. Children are
pretty important over there, just as
they are to the record nimtber of
amateurs and celebrities who played
golf at Duke on May 29-30.
Blue Devils and Tar Heels
Duke had quite a gathering of its
own all-star athletes, including
(Continued on page 3)