The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1877-03-23
THE TRIUMPH OF ART In RAILWAY
TRAVEL.

Year by year we note the footsteps
of progress in many directions. In nc
direction is progress more palpable
than in the facilities offered the rail
road traveller of the present day
Looking back but a few years, we can
see the toiling snake-like advance made
day by day by the emigrant's wagon,
as it was slowly but surely drawn tow.
ard sundown by the patient OK, or the
slowly moving farm horse; then came
the old fashioned stage coach; follow
ing closely, We had the canal packet
then the steamer on the lakes and riv.
ers; then the locomotive engine and
the stsge like car. Now! the palatiaI
coach, and more than palatial drawing
room and sleeping car. Yet, not salts
fed with these, that marvel of man.
moth western corporations, the Chica-
go Il Northwestern Railway, as we
stated some weeks ago. has developed
hotel cars that will, for elegance, use
fulness and real comfort, eclipse any.
thing Of the kind that has been hith-
erto placed in service ON any road.
Some of our readers seem to have some
doubts about the merits of hotel cars,
or their superiority over the so called
dinner car, that is run for a few miles
on some roads. ~ am not 80 sure
about that" said one of our friends, as
he had finished reading our first article
about these hotel coaches that are to
be run on the Omaha and California
lire of the Chicago & North Western
Railway. 81 am not SO sure that l
would care to take my dinner in any
car, no matter how much like a palace,
while it was rnnning at the rate of
forty miles an honr." 1t is a saying,
THAT the faster you run the safer
Why, last June it will be remembered,
that this road hauled from Chicago to
Council Bluffs, in less than ten hours,
the now celebrated Jarrett and Pal
mer Train" On that train was a hotel
car, not as large, with less wheels nm
der it, poorer springs, and in no way
as strong and easy for riding in as these
new cars are to be, and yet, Mr.. Jar
rett said "while on the Chicago &
Northwestern line, running at an av-
erage rate of fifty miles an hour. we
took our breakfast as comfortably as
we would at Delmonico's, i'll New
York"
1t is well known that the Chicago &
North Western Railway is built over
the most favorable line as to grades
that could be found between Chicago
and the Missouri River, with bus few
curves; its track is mostly of heavy steel
rail, gravel ballasted, with wide road
way, giving it permanence and solidity
it is as smooth as a floor; all its cars
strong, with plenty of wheels under
them, and with springs SO adjusted
that the usual bouncing" and osciila-
tion is reduced to the minimum. We
observed last week that in an ordinary
car the side motion and rising and fall
ing of the car was less than half an
inch, and sometimes scarcely percepti
BILE. We believe it will be found that
ii person will sit in these hotel cars and
eat or ,orite as comfortably as he could
at bis desk or table at home; this ,oe
choose to call the triumph Of art in
rdil1Day trdrel.
We learn 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.
Rapids Republican, Feb. 1877.