Ashtabula telegraph. (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1874-1880, 1877-03-23
Whole Number 1920.
The Triumph Of Ara In Railroad
Travel.

Year by wear we note the footsteps oil
progress in many directions. In no dlree-
tion is progress more palpable than IN the
facilities offered the railroad Traveller OF tne
present day. Looking back but lev
wears, we can see the tOilng snail-llke ad-
vance made day by day by the emagraHt
wagon, as it was slowly but surely drawn
toward sundown by the patient OK, or the
slowly moving farm horse; then came the
old-fashiOned stage coach; following close
ly. we had the canal packet; then the
steamer on the lakes and rivers; then the
locomotive engine and the stage like car.
NowI the palatial coach, and more than
palatisl drawing-room and sleepmg-car.
Vet not satisfied with these, that marvel
of mammoth western corporations, the CHI
cago & Northwestern Railway, as we
stated some weeks ago, has developed hotel
cars that will, for elegance, usefulness ana
real comfort, eclipse everything OF the Klnd
that has been hitherto placed in service on
any road Some of our readers seem 70
have some doubts about the merits OF hotel
cars, or their superiority over the so-called
dining car, that is run for few miles on
some roads. 81 am not sure about that,
said one Of our friends, as he had finished
reading our first article about these Motel
coaches that are to be run on the Omaha
and California line of the Chicago & North
Western Railway. Il am not so sure
would care to take my dinner in any car,
no matter how much like palace, while 1t
was running at the rate Of forty miles an
hour" It IS a SAYING, ''that the faster 70
run the safer" Why, last June 1t VIII be
remembered. that this road hauled from
Chicago to Council Bluffs, in less than ten
hours, the new celebrated 'Jarrett and
Palmer Train" On that train was hotel
car, not as large, with less wheels under 1t,
poorer springs, and in no way as strong
and easy for riding in as these new cars are
to be, and yet, Mr.. Jarrett said, while on
the Chicago & Northwestern line, run
ming at an average rate of fifty miles an
hour, we took our breakfast as comfortably
| as we would at Delmonico's, in New York.
It is we'll known that the Chicago s.
North Western Railway is built over the
most favorable line as to grades that could
be found between Chicago and the Missouri
River. with but few curves; its track Is
mostly of heavy steel rail, gravel ballasted,
with wide roadway, giving it permanence
and solidIty-it is as smooth as floor; all
its cars strong, with plenty Of wheels under
them, and with springs so adjusted that
the usual ''bouneing" and oscillation IS re-
dueed to the minimum. We observed last
week that in an ordinary car the side mo-
tion and rising and falling Of the car was
less than half an inch, and sometimes
scarcely perceptible. We believe 1t Will
be found that a person will sit in these hO-
tel cars and eat or write as comfortably as
he could at his desk or table at home; this
we choose to call the triumph of art in rail-
way travel.
We leran that this new line of hotel cars
is being pushed to completion as fast as the
full force of workmen in the Pullman shops
can do it. We shall be certain to see them
in few weeks.
Cedar Rapids Republican, Feb, 1877.