Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-10-13
ENGLAND ASTONISHED
BY the Rate of Speed Now Attained Upon
American Railways-Forced to Confess
That Another Proud European Boast is
a Thing of the Past


On the second day after the special traiI
of the New York Central Railroad made it,
famous trip of mile a minute from New
| published editorials admitting that tIh
country "took the cake'' for fast trains
Here are some of the remarks of the Brm
t'1ghdn' Daily Mail on the subject:
at seems to be beyond dispute that the
| great American nation has done another pes
on record. 1t has shown that there Is noth
ing to prevent railway train from running
a long distance at the rate of mile n minute
| Such possibility has always been admitted
by people who know anything at all abou
engineering. There no reason beyond
considerations of personal safety why
| train should not travel at the rate OF
hundred miles an hour. There are expresses
| at the present moment running in England
| Mt the rate of considerably over sixty miles
an hour, but only, of course, for limited dis
! tances.
There is general impression on this side
| of the Atlantic that we have developer far
more rapid rate of railway travelling than
has been attained in America. We naturelly
pride ourselves upon our splendid tracks,
| which are incomparably better than the
average American track, and it is one OF our
insular boasts that no nation in the world
be found, say between London and Man
chester, London and Edinburgh, or even be-
| tween Liverpool and Manchester.
Progress of Other Nations.
-"But the Englishman who has not left the
confines of his own country must make
some allowance for the progress which
other nations are making in the direction of
| rapid locomotion. Nothing strikes the yisi-
tor to the United States more powerfully
than the extraordinary Improvement which
| the American railway system has under
gone during the last few years. One has only
to travel from New York to Niagara, dis
tance of about 500 miles, at the rate of more
than forty miles an hour, or to take one of
their sumptuously furnished expresses to
Chicago and cover more than double 500
miles at still faster rate of speed, to be put
somewhat out of conceit with the lightning
like qualities of our English trains. Never
theless, the Americans have not disputed
till this moment that the finest bit of rail
way travelling in the wide, wide world has
been done on an English line.
"This distiction was achieved by the Lon
don and Northwestern in their race with
the Great Northern from London to Edin-
burgh. In running from London to Crewe,
l46 miles, without stop, in three hours and
five minutes. the Northwestern fairly opened
the eyes of the Americans as to what could
be done in the shape of speed by the best
possible engine on the best possible track.
But if we are to believe the New York cor
respondent of the &dnddrd-he is supported
in his statement by Dalzieps news agency
this smart performance from London to
Crewe has been relegated to that back
seat" which, sooner or later, is the late of all
best on records in this age.
"rhe story is that on Monday in an expert
mental trip, train composed of an engine
OF 100 tons and three private carriages
weighing l8O TONS made the run from New
York to East Buffalo, 436 miles, in 439 min
utes. By the side of this our little spurts i'll
England appear very small beer.
The Record Is Not Doubted.
eve are inclined to believe that the
details of this extraordinary trip are capable
of complete verification. Its preliminary
boom for the Chicago Exhibition. All the
railway companies will be trying to increase
their rates of speed in view of the competi
tion for traffic. The great drawback to the
Worlds Fair is generally recognized to be
the distance which separates Chicago from
the seaboard. Travellers from Europe will
not relish a Thousand miles railway journey
on top of their ocean trip. The expresses at
present running between New York and
Chicago do the distance in q trifle under "a
hours; but now that the New York Central
Railway has shown what simple thing it is
to run train hundreds of miles at the rate
of mile minute, there is prospect of
the visitors to the coming Exhibition being
whirled to their destination in about 16
hours. Americans will scarcely be stag
gered by such a wonderful upheaval of the
record. They have witnessed, as we have
said, some mighty transformations in their
railway system during the last few years.
at is to be hoped that this will not develop
craze for dangerous speed. Mr.. James
Gordon Bennett secured q wonderful adver-
tisement by running a newspaper train
from New York to Chicago in "a hours or an
Improvement upon the previous time to the
extent of nearly q dozen hours. Now it is
m On
undying renown as the first railway com
pdny in the world to run long distance at
the rate of a mile a minute. Now that this
has been done, the go-ahead American,
when in "hurrying up' humor, will not
consider that he is moving at all unless his
train is whizzng him along at 60 miles an
themselves far safer in an express flying
along at the rate of co or 20 miles an hour
than in a local train moving at about a
quarter of the speed. A fast train COM
mands respect. There is no perfunctory
supervision of points and signals when the
express is due.
English Trains Must Go Faster.
Zone probable, we might almost say
certain effect of this experimental railway
trip in America will be the revival of the
familiar controversy about the duration OF
the journey between Birmingham and Lon
don. We are by no means inclined to dis
parage the splendid service between New
street and Euston- There are no trains in
the world that keep more reliable time or
are under better management than the
EuSton expresses. But would it not be DOS
Sible to clip of a few minutes from the reg
ulation run? The distance between New
street and Euston is 1l3 miles, and the time
has been brought down by careful grada-
tions to two hours and half
''Now, it is quite obvious that if a
mile q minute can be safely done on an
American track, it should be possible to
travel from Birmingham to London in a
couple of hours or so, which would be a con-
sidera BILE saving of valuable time for busi-
ness men. But it will be said there is the
question of stops to be taken into account
That is quite true. But then the complaint
Of business men is that there are too many
stops on the London line The experiment
might at any rate be tried of running two or
three trains during the day with one or, at
the outside, two stops. Only one train-the
$50 in the morning from New street-does
the journey in two and q half hours.
"The first stop in the remarkable run
from New York to Buffalo was at the end of
the 143d mile to change engines, the time
then being l40 minutes. Then there was
another run of AS miles in 146 minutes 1t
is to be hoped that the success of the venture
will not drive the world to risky eXperi-
mentS in the way of rapid locomotion. The
whole thing suggests creepy reflections OF
what might happen if something occurred
to check an express moving at the rate of Il
mile minute. OF course, with the line i'll
good order and the wheels and aXles all
right, and the signalling and points above
suspicion. the possibilities of a catastrophe
are very remote. People have SO much to
do nowadays that fast travelling is an enor-
nous convenience, and when consistent
with safety it is to be heartily encouraged.
We see what the development OF speed in the
ocean steamer has done to increase the
traffic between this country and America.
1t now seems that rapid railway travelling
is to play its part in the same direction"
Cannot Afford the Sacrifice.
Cincinnati Commercial Gdzette.l
In crying down the beginnings of the tin
tn n II thiS cor, fry bo