RAILWAY SPEED IN AMERICA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13251, 6 April 1905, Page 10

RAILWAY SPEED IN AMERICA

There are in a report just issued from the British Embassy at Washington to the Foreign Office some interesting particulars given concerning railways in the United States. The passenger trains are frequently heavy but not particularly fast. Tho best speeds are found between Philadelphia and the seaside rerorts ot Atlantic City ami Cape May, where in summer there are a certain nunibcr of really fasti trains. From Atlantic City to Camden, a suburb of Philadelphia, via the Philadelphia and Reading line, one train in the summer of 1901 was fo. - a timo given only 49min, start to stop, for the miles; while between Camden and Cape May, on the Pennsylvania railway, there is a train which covers the 72.2 miles from Camden to Anglesea Junction in 73min, start to stop. Between New York and tVaShingfon, through a thickly populated district, and past tho great cities of Philadelphia and Baltimore, a very' good service is called for. There are two lines engaged in this traffic. The distance in both cases is approximately 227 miles, and includes a ferry crossing into, or from Now York, (involving a loss of about a quarter of an hour. From New York to Washington thoro are 15 irains t acli day by the Pennsylvania and 10 by the Baltimore and Ohio. Tho fastest take fivo hours, and seven more take five and a-half hours or loss. A certain number of these trains perform start-to-stop runs r-.t average speeds of over 50 miles an hour. While electricity is almost exclusively used as the motivj power of tho extremely numerous tranways in every part of the Urfited States, on railways it is used to a very limited extent only; tho overhead railways of New York and' Chicago are the most conspicuous instances. For «vprking trains through tunnels whero the traffic is intense, and for suburban work in general, it is probable that electricity will bo more and more used as tho motive power, but the prospect of anything like a revolution in the direction of its being employed to work long-distance railway traffic seetns remote.