SHORTENING TIME ACROSS THE CON- 

 TINENT 



By Henry Herbert McClure 



TWENTY hours to Chicago, 

 forty-five hours to Denver, 

 ninety hours to the Pacific 

 coast — these are the new records for 

 long-distance transportation, taking 

 New York city as the starting point, 

 which indicate a general movement on 

 the part of the great railroad systems of 

 the country to save time across the con- 

 tinent and to draw closer together the 

 important cities along the way. The 

 establishment of the twenty-hour trains 

 between New York and Chicago on June 

 15th may be said to mark the new era 

 of transportation. Interest in that ini- 

 tial event had not subsided before there 

 began a service out of Chicago which 

 landed passengers in Denver in twenty- 

 five hours, and plans are now being 

 made whereb}' the transcontinental sys- 

 tems will run trains from Chicago to 

 ' L,os Angeles in something less than 

 three days' time. 



The movement is significant of genu- 

 ine twentieth-century progress, and the 

 new conditions may in a sense be said 

 to have come about because of the need 

 for improved facilities. It was well 

 that the railroads should keep pace with 

 the rapid movements of modern life 

 just as formerly they were pathfinders 

 and pace-makers for civilization itself. 

 These United States owe much to the 

 railroad systems, which have ribbed it 

 with bands of steel and changed it from 

 a tremendous territory which required 

 months to cross into a community of 

 farms, factories, towns, and cities. 



The accomplishment of these new rec- 

 ords and their maintenance as a regular 

 daily occurrence places this country in 

 the fore rank so far as railway facilities 

 and fast long-distance speed are con- 



cerned. It is true that the Sud Express 

 on the Orleans and Midi Railroad, run- 

 ning from Paris to Bayonne, makes an 

 average of five miles per hour more 

 than the Twentieth Century Limited of 

 the New York Central, but the French 

 train travels only half as far as the 

 American. As a matter of fact, how- 

 ever, few trains in the world cover such 

 long distances as those in this country, 

 and comparisons are scarcely just. For 

 example, the Siberian Express, running 

 between Moscow and Irkutsk, makes 

 3,400 miles in eight days, an average 

 of about one-third the speed of our 

 trains. No one would regard this rec- 

 ord as representing the best that Rus- 

 sian trains could do over distances of 

 from 500 to 1,000 miles. 



When the twenty-hour trains between 

 New York and Chicago were first put 

 on, they were designed to carry passen- 

 gers and a limited amount of baggage 

 only. The trains were made up of four 

 cars — a buffet smoking and library car, 

 two twelve-section drawing-room state- 

 room cars, and one state-room observa- 

 tion car. On certain sections of the 

 lines a dining car was added to each 

 train. Within a few days, however, 

 the government arranged for the addi- 

 tion of one mail car to each of these 

 twenty-hour trains, and, as a result, this 

 fast service has come to be of great value 

 to thousands who might never wish to 

 travel in the trains themselves. The 

 new era of transportation at once in- 

 spires an interest, which is not merely 

 wonder at its achievements — it becomes 

 a practical, tangible thing, which calls 

 for our appreciation because each one 

 may be benefited by its existence. 



The business man of New York city 



