Page:A hundred years hence - the expectations of an optimist (IA hundredyearshenc00russrich).pdf/58

 communication goes, the chief difficulties to be overcome already call loudly for amendment. We cannot for more than a decade or so make do with the present railway tracks, and either {as already hinted) by means of some invention to enable trains to run one above another, or by some entirely new carrying device such as I will now try to suggest, the new age will certainly supersede or supplement the transport of to-day.

The device most likely to be adopted, in the near future at all events, is something in the nature of elevated trottoirs roulants for goods. If we can conceive all the cities of a country to be linked-up by a system of great overways, we have at all events a feasible solution of the difficulty. There could be a double row of tall, massive pillars, between which could run a wide track, always in motion at considerable speed. It need not be a lightning speed. Most of the tardiness of railway transportation does not, in this country at all events, arise from slowness of trains, but from congestion at goods stations, and this in turn is due, partly to insufficiency of rolling stock, but much more to insufficiency of permanent way. The latter evil is very difficult to cope with. But the system of moving ways, providing a rolling stock equal in length to the line itself, will be a great saving. Returning upon itself the endless track will continuously transport mer-