The Salt Lake herald-Republican. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1909-1918, 1910-05-09
NEW SCHEME TO
CROSS CHANNEL
Present Trip From London to
the French Capital Is Too
lnCOnVenient.
TRAIN FERRY SUGGESTED
TIME AND LABOR TO BE RE
DUCED BY NEW SYSTEM.

Stettiner Bahnhof, in Berlin, at ii
o'clock at night, gives a shilling to
the trim "contrOleur'' to look after his
baggage at the Danish Customs, and
goes to bed to awake to his morning
eoffee within half an hour or so of
the Danish capital, all oblivious of the
It he has crossed in his slum-
bers twenty-six miles of the storm
tossed Baltic For at Warnemunde, on
the German shore. the Copenhagen ex-
press has been shunted bodily on TO
the great train ferry, and smoothly
and swiftly borne across to Gjedser,
on the Danish coast
Berlin to Copenhagen is an eleven
hour trip. London to Paris takes six
and half hours, yet the Paris-bound
Londoner, be he a pleasure seeking
uIu,miIiionaire or commercial trav-
eIer, has to turn out in the middle of
the night, walk shivering and bag
laden to the steamer, and if he has not
the means to afford a cabin must rest
uncomfortably in the saloon or on deck
until he walks once more, shivering
and bag-laden. across the gangway on
to French soil. The distance between
Germany and Denmark from shore to
shore of the Baltic and across the
Straits of Dover is about the same but
the difference in the comfort of the
two Journeys would have ELECTED pic
turesque animadverSion even from
Mark Tapley. The reason is the same
as that which has hitherto deprived
LouuOH OF postal service,
and as that which is at the bottom of
most abuses of modern life in England
English conservatism.
At the meeting of the Association Of
Chambers of Commerce in London the
other day the British Chamber of Com
merce of Paris proposed a resolution
expressing the opinion that a train
ferry system across the English Chan
mel would be of great commercial ad-
vantage to Great Britain and that his
ke.1 70 FOL -
such steps as may be necessary and
possible for insuring its early adop-
ton The hard-headed men of COM
merce who form the membership of
chambers of commerce are not con-
cerned with the sufferings of the in
dividual crOss-channel passenger. They
have to consider trade interests alone,
and the advantage accruing to COM
merce through the abolition of trans
shipment of goods. first at the English
port and then at the French, is so
transparently obvious as to secure the
earnest consideration of the British
Chamber of Commerce in Paris.
It is at present calculated that the
average cost per ton of transshipment
of merchandise from rail to boat and
from boat to rail again at Dover and
Calais represents Is Sd-that Is to say,
IS I'D for the double transshipment
This saving alone would represent a
considerable margin of profit. The
cost of the transfer of goods naturally
varies greatly with. the nature of the
wares. but a large portion of Anglo
French commerce consists of fragile
articles such as eggs, fruit, flowers,
and artistic articles which have to
be separately and carefully handled,
thereby increasing the labor and there
fore the cost Of operation good
proof of the fact that the necessity
of reducing the waste of time and labor
consequent on the double transship-
ment is afforded by the methods adopt
ed by the London & southwestern rail-
way for conveying American meat. 1t is
loaded on to carts at the dock side
and these carts are placed bodily on
goods trucks so that in London horses
can be harnessed up and the meat taken
Immediately to Smithfield without the
delay caused by further unpacking.
Opinions generally seem to agree
that the channel crossing is suscept-
ible of sensible Improvement The Brit
ish government has vetoed the channel
tunnel: the channel bridge is regarded
as impra cticable, not only from the
political point of view-fOr lis almost
certain that other nations, notably
Germany, would protest against the
blocking of this great marine high
Wav-but also from the engineering
standpoint. There remains the chan
mel ferry The experience of these
ferries, which were originally intro
ducel in Europe in the United King
dom by train ferries over the Forth
bridges. and which already exist in the
United States, Sweden, Denmark, Italy
and Russia, has been that they almost
instantly bring with them very ap-
preciable increase of goods and pas
senger traffic. which in course Of time
repays the initial cost of special har-
Dor accommodation and the construc-
tiOn of strong and powerful Terry
steamers. The latest train ferry IS
that between Germany and Sweden,
opening a direct communication be-
tween Stockholm and the rest of Eu-
rope The stretch of sea between
Sassnitz in Germany, and Trelleborg
in Sweden, is no less than Sc miles
with regard to the channel ferry, rn1
Intercontinental Railway company.
company formed out of the old Channel
Bridge & Tunnel company. exists;
which for some years now has carried
it's object. with the noteworthy result
that IT has secured the patronage or
the British Chamber of Commerce in
paris on behalf Of its scheme.
It is proposed that powers should De
secured from parliament to authorize
fhe company to take over the channel
transit across the Dover-Calais route
and to maintain the service by means
of passeng ger and good train ferries 1t
will he necessary to provide special
5octs at Dover with apparatus for
lifting or lowering the trains to the
levels of the ferries, to erect sheds
for the housing and customs examina-
ton of wares. and to build specially
designed steamers to transport the
trains bodily across the straits. It is
proposed that these steamers should
be turbine vessels. The trains will be
run on lines into the body OF the ships,
and on the upper decks VIII be pro-
vided restaurants and smoking saloons,
as in the Swedish and Danish boats,
some Of which, IL may be noted, were
built in England Thus passengers on
the day service will be able to leave
their seats in the train and luncn
the ferry en- route and at night can
stay comfortable in their sleeping car
berths without being disturbed. It is
anticipated that II the railway COM
panies adopt the scheme the times of
the night trains from London will be so
altered that passengers may go to bed
in the train at Charing Cross and
wake up as the Calais radipe is steam
ing into the Care du Ncrd in Paris.
I have talked with Oliver Bodington,
the wel1-known Paris lawyer, who is a
director of the Intercontinental Rail-
way company and a leading spirit in
the scheme, and he complains bitterly
of the obstructionist attitude of the
English railways. He levels the charge
against the channel ferry objections of
detail which the ferry company dis
proves only TO find them succeeded by
other objections of. as Mr.. Bodington
declares. an equally superficial char
acter. He adds that the new company
Is not committed to the Doyer-Csa1afs