Page:A hundred years hence - the expectations of an optimist (IA hundredyearshenc00russrich).pdf/40

 would be quite fast enough, for some decades at least, to satisfy all requirements of suburban traffic, though it would be, and indeed is, ridiculously inadequate for long-distance travelling. The expense of increased permanent-way hampers railway management, and as there is no possibility of getting more land to increase the number of available tracks, some method will have to be devised for running one train over the top of another—perhaps to the height of several storeys, not necessarily provided with supporting rails: for we may very conceivably have discovered means by which vehicles can be propelled above the ground in some kind of guide-ways, doing away with the great loss of power caused by wheel friction; that is to say, the guides will direct, but not support, the carriages. The clumsy device of locomotive engines will have been dispensed with. Whatever power is employed to drive the trains of the next century will certainly be conveyed to them from central power-houses.

But, as the reader has been already reminded, it is the stoppages which are so wasteful of time on a suburban railway: and they are also wasteful of force. Now in all respects the new age will be economical. One thing that will have to be perfected is the art of getting up speed. Look, as you go home to-night, at the way your train gathers