The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-01-24
THE QUESTION OF STOPPING.

THE HERALD has lately discussed some
phases of rapid railroad travelling, sug
gested by the porteectric mail transporta
ton project. However fast may be the
method Of locomotion, it seems there always
will be a desire to go still faster. 1t may
be unreasonable, as well as impatient, but
it is irrepressible. The age is one of econ
omies, of money-making and money-sav-
ing, and the thrifty truth that time is
money was never so c early felt and ap-
preciated es now. A Salt Lake business
man with e weeks leisure wants TO spend
two or three days of it in Washington or
New York, in both of which he has inter-
ests that need looking after, and it is
matter of no small concern to him
whether he can get there in forty
hours or four days. Dizzy as
are the promises Of speeding by
rail at the rate of $50 miles an hour, there
are few who do not wish to see them veri-
fed. Going to New York in one day and
back in the same time, would save four or
five days over the present schedule, and
this consideration alone is enough 10 make
an active business man quiyer al over with
ueuShtIql expectations.
But all railroad experts and other expert
mentors in the problems CT locomoton re
cogrize that there is one difficulty in the
way Of very fast travelling which, at pres
ent, they see no way OF overcoming. No
one doubts that vehicles or missiles will be
invented at no distant day to move 100
miles an hour or even twice that rate. They
! no. n, ha S-iU III
makes no difference which. Railroad men
tell US that. engines, with trains at
tached, can be driven 100 miles an
hour now, and electricians, as The
HERALD has said in 2 previous article, pre-
dict speed even greater than that of the
portelectric mail carrier. But it is the
stopping part Of the business that presents
the difficulty. Bringing to halt a train
travelling at this rate OF speed would be
something like slowing up cannon ball.
The faster train runs the greater distance
and time it requires for stopping, and if it
takes fifteen or twenty seconds TO bring q
fast limited express running fifty miles an
hour to a halt, it would take twice as long
TO bring train moving one hundred miles
an hour to d halt. Indeed the chief part
of the problem would be, not to make the
run in the given time, but TO stop at the
end of it. a single-track road could not
be used for travelling at the rate of one hun
bred miles an hour. The fast train, once
started, would need to bave q mo-
nopoly Of the road from end tc
end, and as to the engineer
he might as well be blind man, since his
eyes would be of little or no use-even il
he should see another train or a danger
light mile ahead he would be On it before
he could reverse his engine.
1t may be that the fast travelling vehicle
we are dreaming Of will be an air.ship; in
, deed it must be. The earth is too firm anG
unyieldlng, and presents too many obstruc-
tious to invest one hundred and fifty mile:
an hour with that degree of safety neces-
sary to make US comfortable, but the atmos
phere above our heads is both elastic anC
bounding, and better, therefore, for fas
moving and fast stopping. Certainly il
the early period of such going to and fir,
, there would be few collisions and it'll
. ''massing up Of the right of way"