Eastern times. [volume] (Bath, Me.) 1846-1857, 1854-11-16
Great Railroad Speed.

A paper was lately read by Judge Meips,
before the American Institute farmers Club,
at New York, upon the subject of rapid rail-
road travelling, in which he said
have, with others, admired the progress
made in velocity on railroads mp to even one
one hundred miles an hour, which has been
done in England. But | entertain views Of
railroad velocity far beyond any yet ventured
to be expressed. The Emperor of Russia has
taken the first great step towards what deem
| the utimatum Of railroad travel.
Instead of cutting narrow alley through
the country, or going round everything in the
way OF straight line-he has cut a broad
way five hundred miles, from ST. Petersburg
to Moscow-he has made il all the way t,ro
hundred5fe wide, SO that the engineer sees
every thing that comes on the road
Such is part of the future the railroad
from point TO point a mathematical line the
rails ten times stronger than any now nsed
the locomotives on wheels of far greater diam
eter. say twelve or fifteen feet; the gauge Of a
relative breadth the signals and time per-
fectly settled the road, walled on both sides,
during the transit Of trains having the gates Of
the walls all closed. Then, instead Of one
hundred miles an hour, We shall more safely
travel three hundred miles an hour will not
pretend to say more-One hundred seems fast
enough so did twenty, few years ago and
now, on very straight rails or some straigh,
runs, we do travel sixty miles an hour in this
State, and in England; one hundred miles have
been accomplished.
Mathematical precision one time will solve
this problem-a passage from New York to
San Frncisco in ten hours =
Commenting on this, the Scientific American
says:
We have no doubt of one hundred miles
per hour being perfectly practicable railroad
speed, by The building Of such railroads as
those described by the Judge. aud this opiniun
we expressed in the columns of the Scientific
American some years ago.
But three hundred miles per hour inclines
US to the fogy side Of the question. This speed
would require piston velocity Of $500 feet
per minute, of eighteen-inch stroke, if the dri-
wing wheels were twenty four inches in cir
cumference, (nearly eight feet in diameter
whoppers) and they would have to make 100
revolutions per minute. As the wheels can
not turn round without steam, the query with
us is, the means of raising the steam necessary
TO perform this feat, as the boiler would have
TO evaporate about iun of water per minute
sixty in the hour. So far as it relates 10
the final velocity of steam in vacuum, the
speed Of three hnndued miles per hour could
be obtained, bnt how can such a quantity Of
steam be evaporated in locomotive boiler,
in this space Of time! Judge Meigs may,
perhaps be able to answer US. With respect
TO the velocity Of bodies, our ideas has been
bounded by what has been performed before
onr eyes, the flight Of the swallow, the pig
con, the eagle; but when we look to the
heavenly bodies and calculate the awful veloc-
ity with which they are Increasingly wheeled
through space, the mind is struck with solemn
awe at The mighty power of the great Gre
atOr who has made huge Jupiter revolve once
on his axis in ten hours, and through space al
the rate Of 1855 miles per hour, or fifteen times
the velocity Of locomotive running at the
rate of 300 miles an hour