The record-union., 1891-03-16
PRESENT AND FuiruRE
Sixty Years Ago the Aversfe @ Speed o
Trains Was Twenty Miles an Hour.

Sixty Years Ago the Aversc,e Speed of
Trains Was Twenty Miles an Hour.
1t is refreshing to turn frol contempo-
rary schemes for aerial nav CATION and
electric propulsion of railwa. trains to a
discussion of the steam raj Vay itself.
such as is given by Profe sor r. III.
Thurston, in the December number of
the Forum. Professor Thr .ston is an
advocate of progress in p oblems of
transportation, and declares his faith in
electrical traction for the future, but this
does not hinder him from enthusiastic
praise Of the railway as it exists at pres
ent, somewhat after the fashion of An
drew Carnegie's dissertation on our
national institutions in 'Triumphant
Democracy" The present railway equip
ment is Il great improvement upon the
inventions of Stephenson and Ericsson,
without doubt, and it is well for US to
turn from our dreams of 300 or 400 miles
an hour in the future, to the achieve
ments of to-day.
Fifty or sixty years ago the average
train crept at twenty miles an hour, and
stopped at every station along its course,
where now we run at a speed of fifty or
sixty miles, with few stops for through
expresses, and special accommodation
trains for local passenger traffic. On oc-
casion we can cover eighty miles in an
hour, provided the track is straight and
the road-bed solid, and speed even greater
is reported now and then. The rails of
the tracks were once of comparatively
1iimsy manufacture, while now they weigh
hundred pounds to the yard agreat i'm
provement has been effected in the con-
struction of the bed of the road, in bridges
and in rolling-stock, not only from
an attractive point of view, but in dura-
bility and general reliability as well :;
Our locomotives are monsters, COM
pared with their predecessors, our pas
senger cars well-lighted and well-heated
apartments, and our drawing-room cars
with their bath rooms, sleeping rooms,
restaurants, type-writers and the like,
almost as comfortable as home. Railway
travel has its attendant discomforts by
the score, but attention is here directed to
the equipment of the best roads and to
travel under the best conditions. A mod
ern train frequently costs from Sl00, 900
upwards, and unites in its construction
the skill of professional specialists III 100
arts. We must not fail in appreciation of
our present railway conveniences, there
fore, open as they are to great and de-
Sirable improvement.
The question inevitably introduced into
such discussion concerns the future at
tainment of speed on the railway, and
this Professor Thurston answers so far
as it can be answered, enumerating the
conditions requisite to the best results
and giving us hope for considerable adj
vance without resort to electricity or
navigation through the air. Briefly, it
will be possible to maintain rate of
speed at least as high as the highest al
ready reached, say eighty or hundred
miles an hour, providing the conditions
under which this speed or it's approxi-
mate has been attained are extended to
universal application, and safety like
wise can be assured within reasonable
limits by an advance along just those
lines of construction which our best
companies are now pursuing. Given
smooth and straight tracks, no grade
crossings, freedom from local passenger
and freight trains, few if any stops en-
| route, curves infrequent and with gener-
GUS radii, heavy rails, ample strength in
all running parts, plentiful fabrication
and other such contributions to speed and
safety, and a rate of more than 100 miles
an hour seems possible. As for 100 miles,
to which some longing eyes are turned,
Professor Thurston calculates the ''head
resistance" at such a rate, not far from
200 pounds per square foot of section of
the train, OF about ten tons in all, requir-
ing an impracticable locomotive of 5000
horse power. For this speed we must
wait in all probability for some other
motive power, possibly electricity, with
every car constructed as a motor.
Such general survey is valuable first
for its statement of the possibilities of the
steam railway in its present form, and
again for its exhibition of the improve
ments constantly being made in railway
equipments, q part of which we are liable
to lose sight in our ambition for more
radical changes in our methods of loco
motion. We may not progress as rapidly
as we could wish, but we are certainly adj
vancing and may hope for a considerable
betterment in the speed of our railway
trains. essentially as they exist to-day.