762 REPORT— 1901. 



of copper in the conductors which transmit the energy along the length df the 

 line, as it is evident that if the speed he sufficient to ensure that each section 

 of the line only carries one running train, the costs of the conductors will be in 

 proportion to the weight of that train. 



Great advantages have already been made in adapting electrical traction to 

 lono- lengths of railways. The work already done by Brown Boveri, of Baden, in 

 Switzerland, at first on the mountain railways and afterwards on the Burghdorf- 

 Thun full-gauge line, the experimental work of Ganz & Co., of Buda-Pesth, and 

 of Siemens & Ilalske at Charlottenburg, have already shown that the power 

 problems are nearly all of them solved, so that we may feel confideut that 

 electrical engineers will very shortly surmount any power difficulties that still 

 remain. But this high-speed railways problem at present presents certain unknown 

 factors which can only be satisfactorily determined by the actual testing and 

 working the lines when carrying passengers. I refer to those which deal with 

 the increased oscillation, vibration, and noise to be expected from the extreme 

 speeds. These matters must he met so as to give sufficient comfort and protection 

 to the passengers, for if passengers are rendered uncomfortable by the extreme 

 speed the service can never become popular, and on this last question depends the 

 most important question of all, viz., the extent to which the travelling public are 

 likely to make use of a high-speed railway service. In attempting to forecast this 

 matter, although we meet many business men who think it would be an undoubted 

 advantage if the journeys between important business centres occupied half the 

 time they do at present, In the United Kingdom there are only a few journeys 

 of sufficient length to make saving of time of great importance, but the case is far 

 difterent in America and on the Continent, where the business centres are much 

 further apart than they are here. I, as an English engineer, foresee that this 

 topographical question will cause our English engineers to be at a disadvantage 

 as compared with American and Continental ones, for it appears likely that the 

 number and mileage of high-speed railways is likely to be far greater In America 

 and on the Continent than in the United Kingdom. Before I entirely leave the 

 subjectof very high-speed railways, a rather curious speculation presents itself to us: 

 this is whether the need for rapid communication between town and town may not 

 eventually be supplied by high-speed motor-cars on roads specially prepared for them. 

 Mr.Wells in his interesting forecast in the ' Fortnightly Review ' seems to think that 

 the time is not far distant when all passenger traffic will be carried on special roads on 

 motor-cars. That the advantages of carrying your family and loading up your belong- 

 ings at your own door. In your own or a hired car, and transporting them without 

 any change or handling of your baggage right up to the point where your journey 

 ends, will be so great that even for comparative long journeys travellers will 

 prefer it to the railway, and that our railways will eventually be relegated to carrying 

 minerals and heavy goods. But, without going so far as Mr. "Wells, it does seem 

 probable that It' only a few passengers require to travel between two business 

 centres such as Manchester and Liverpool, and to occupy only half the time from 

 door to door at present taken by the railway and the two terminal cab rides, it 

 might be better to provide one of Mr. Wells' improved roads on which private 

 owners could run their own cars, paying toll for the road, and on which a public 

 service of cars would provide for those who did not own cars themselves. 



I now propose to deal at somewhat greater length with what I think is a most 

 important problem in locomotion, viz., that caused by the congestion of street 

 traffic in our towns and by the undoubted difficulties which exist In carrying our 

 workers to and from their homes in the country to their places of employment in 

 our towns. A large proportion of the workers who during the latter half of the 

 last century lived and worked in the country are now working in towns, although 

 some of them still live outside in order to obtain the advantages of lower rents 

 and of a healthier life for their families, and this last class is likely to largely 

 increase. Those who have been responsible for the enlarging and improvements 

 of our towns have done so much to make town life preferable to country life that 

 the country is gradually being depopulated. The results we see in the increasing 

 difficulties which the town authorities find in dealing with the water and sewerage 



