A century ago a long journey was considered an exploit, and an exploit to be carried through as quickly as possible on account of the dangers of the road and the generally uncomfortable conditions of travel. To-day, though our express speed is many times greater than that of the lumbering coaches, our carriages comparatively luxurious, the risk practically nil, the same wish lurks in the breast of ninety-nine out of a hundred railway passengers—to spend the shortest time in the train that the time-table permits of. Time differences that to our grandfathers would have appeared trifling are now matters of sufficient importance to make rival railway companies anxious to clip a few minutes off a 100-mile “run” simply because their passengers appreciate a few minutes’ less confinement to the cars.

During the last fifty years the highest express speeds have not materially altered. The Great Western Company in its early days ran trains from Paddington to Slough, 18 miles, in 15-1/2 minutes, or at an average pace of 69-1/2 miles an hour.

On turning to the present regular express services of the world we find America heading the list with a 50-mile run between Atlantic City and Camden, covered at the average speed of 68 miles an hour; Britain second with a 33-mile run between Forfar and Perth at 59 miles; and France a good third with an hourly average of rather more than 58 miles between Les Aubrais and S. Pierre des Corps. These runs are longer than that on the Great Western Railway referred to above (which now occupies twenty-four minutes), but their average velocity is less. What is the cause of this decrease of speed? Not want of power in modern engines; at times our trains attain a rate of 80 miles an hour, and in America a mile has been turned off in the astonishing time of thirty-two seconds. We should rather seek it in the need for economy and in the physical limitations imposed by the present system of plate-laying and railroad engineering. An average speed of ninety miles an hour would, as things now stand, be too wasteful of coal and too injurious to the rolling-stock to yield profit to the proprietors of a line; and, except in certain districts, would prove perilous for the passengers. Before our services can be much improved the steam locomotive must be supplanted by some other application of motive power, and the metals be laid in a manner which will make special provision for extreme speed.

Since rapid transit is as much a matter of commercial importance as of mere personal convenience it must not be supposed that an average of 50 miles an hour will continue to meet the needs of travellers. Already practical experiments have been made with two systems that promise us an ordinary speed of 100 miles an hour and an express speed considerably higher.

One of these, the monorail or single-rail system, will be employed on a railroad projected between Manchester and Liverpool. At present passengers between these two cities—the first to be connected by a railroad of any kind—enjoy the choice of three rival services covering 34-1/2 miles in three-quarters of an hour. An eminent engineer, Mr. F. B. Behr, now wishes to add a fourth of unprecedented swiftness. Parliamentary powers have been secured for a line starting from Deansgate, Manchester, and terminating behind the pro-Cathedral in Liverpool, on which single cars will run every ten minutes at a velocity of 110 miles an hour.

A monorail track presents a rather curious appearance. The ordinary parallel metals are replaced by a single rail carried on the summit of A-shaped trestles, the legs of which are firmly bolted to sleepers. A monorail car is divided lengthwise by a gap that allows it to hang half on either side of the trestles and clear them as it moves. The double flanged wheels to carry and drive the car are placed at the apex of the gap. As the “centre of gravity” is below the rail the car cannot turn over, even when travelling round a sharp curve.

The first railway built on this system was constructed by M. Charles Lartigue, a French engineer, in Algeria, a district where an ordinary two-rail track is often blocked by severe sand-storms. He derived the idea of balancing trucks over an elevated rail from caravans of camels laden on each flank with large bags. The camel, or rather its legs, was transformed by the engineer’s eye into iron trestles, while its burden became a car. A line built as a result of this observation, and supplied with mules as tractive power, has for many years played an important part in the esparto-grass trade of Algeria.

In 1886 Mr. Behr decided that by applying steam to M. Lartigue’s system he could make it successful as a means of transporting passengers and goods. He accordingly set up in Tothill Fields, Westminster, on the site of the new Roman Catholic Cathedral, a miniature railway which during nine months of use showed that the monorail would be practical for heavy traffic, safe, and more cheaply maintained than the ordinary double-metal railway. The train travelled easily round very sharp curves and climbed unusually steep gradients without slipping.

Mr. Behr was encouraged to construct a monorail in Kerry, between Listowel, a country town famous for its butter, and Ballybunion, a seaside resort of increasing popularity. The line, opened on the 28th of February 1888, has worked most satisfactorily ever since, without injury to a single employÉ or passenger.

On each side of the trestles, two feet below the apex, run two guide-rails, against which press small wheels attached to the carriages to prevent undue oscillation and “tipping” round curves. At the three stations there are, instead of points, turn-tables or switches on to which the train runs for transference to sidings.

Road traffic crosses the rail on drawbridges, which are very easily worked, and which automatically set signals against the train. The bridges are in two portions and act on the principle of the Tower Bridge, each half falling from a perpendicular position towards the centre, where the ends rest on the rail, specially strengthened at that spot to carry the extra weight. The locomotive is a twin affair; has two boilers, two funnels, two fireboxes; can draw 240 tons on the level at fifteen miles an hour, and when running light travels a mile in two minutes. The carriages, 18 feet long and carrying twelve passengers on each side, are divided longitudinally into two parts. Trucks too are used, mainly for the transport of sand—of which each carries three tons—from Ballybunion to Listowel: and in the centre of each train is a queer-looking vehicle serving as a bridge for any one who may wish to cross from one side of the rail to the other.

Several lines on the pattern of the Ballybunion-Listowel have been erected in different countries. Mr. Behr was not satisfied with his first success, however, and determined to develop the monorail in the direction of fast travelling, which he thought would be most easily attained on a trestle-track. In 1893 he startled engineers by proposing a Lightning-Express service, to transport passengers at a velocity of 120 miles an hour. But the project seemed too ideal to tempt money from the pockets of financiers, and Mr. Behr soon saw that if a high-speed railway after his own heart were constructed it must be at his own expense. He had sufficient faith in his scheme to spend £40,000 on an experimental track at the Brussels Exhibition of 1897. The exhibition was in two parts, connected by an electric railway, the one at the capital, the other at Tervueren, seven miles away. Mr. Behr built his line at Tervueren.

The greatest difficulty he encountered in its construction arose from the opposition of landowners, mostly small peasant proprietors, who were anxious to make advantageous terms before they would hear of the rail passing through their lands. Until he had concluded two hundred separate contracts, by most of which the peasants benefited, his platelayers could not get to work. Apart from this opposition the conditions were not favourable. He was obliged to bridge no less than ten roads; and the contour of the country necessitated steep gradients, sharp curves, long cuttings and embankments, the last of which, owing to a wet summer, could not be trusted to stand quite firm. The track was doubled for three miles, passing at each end round a curve of 1600 feet radius.

The rail ran about four feet above the track on trestles bolted down to steel sleepers resting on ordinary ballast. The carriage—Mr. Behr used but one on this line—weighed 68 tons, was 59 feet long and 11 feet wide, and could accommodate one hundred persons. It was handsomely fitted up, and had specially-shaped seats which neutralised the effect of rounding curves, and ended fore and aft in a point, to overcome the wind-resistance in front and the air-suction behind. Sixteen pairs of wheels on the under side of the carriage engaged with the two pairs of guide rails flanking the trestles, and eight large double-flanged wheels, 4-1/2 feet in diameter, carried the weight of the vehicle. The inner four of these wheels were driven by as many powerful electric motors contained, along with the guiding mechanism, in the lower part of the car. The motors picked up current from the centre rail and from another steel rail laid along the sleepers on porcelain insulators.

The top speed attained was about ninety miles an hour. On the close of the Exhibition special experiments were made at the request of the Belgian, French, and Russian Governments, with results that proved that the Behr system deserved a trial on a much larger scale.

The engineer accordingly approached the British Government with a Bill for the construction of a high-speed line between Liverpool and Manchester. A Committee of the House of Commons rejected the Bill on representations of the Salford Corporation. The Committee had to admit, nevertheless, that the evidence called was mainly in favour of the system; and, the plans of the rail having been altered to meet certain objections, Parliamentary consent was obtained to commence operations when the necessary capital had been subscribed. In a few years the great seaport and the great cotton town will probably be within a few minutes’ run of each other.

A question that naturally arises in the mind of the reader is this: could the cars, when travelling at 110 miles an hour, be arrested quickly enough to avoid an accident if anything got on the line?

The Westinghouse air-brake has a retarding force of three miles a second. It would therefore arrest a train travelling at 110 miles per hour in 37 seconds, or 995 yards. Mr. Behr proposes to reinforce the Westinghouse with an electric brake, composed of magnets 18 inches long, exerting on the guide rails by means of current generated by the reversed motors an attractive force of 200 lbs. per square inch. One great advantage of this brake is that its efficiency is greatest when the speed of the train is highest and when it is most needed. The united brakes are expected to stop the car in half the distance of the Westinghouse alone; but they would not both be applied except in emergencies. Under ordinary conditions the slowing of a car would take place only at the termini, where the line ascends gradients into the stations. There would, however, be small chance of collisions, the railway being securely fenced off throughout its entire length, and free from level crossings, drawbridges and points. Furthermore, each train would be its own signalman. Suppose the total 34-1/2 miles divided into “block” lengths of 7 miles. On leaving a terminus the train sets a danger signal behind it; at 7 miles it sets another, and at 14 miles releases the first signal. So that the driver of a car would have at least 7 miles to slow down in after seeing the signals against him. In case of fog he would consult a miniature signal in his cabin working electrically in unison with the large semaphores.

The Manchester-Liverpool rail will be reserved for express traffic only. Mr. Behr does not believe in mixing speeds, and considers it one of the advantages of his system that slow cars and waggons of the ordinary two-rail type cannot be run on the monorail; because if they could managers might be tempted to place them there.

A train will consist of a single vehicle for forty, fifty, or seventy passengers, as the occasion requires. It is calculated that an average of twelve passengers at one penny per mile would pay all the expenses of running a car.

Mr. Behr maintains that monorails can be constructed far more cheaply than the two-rail, because they permit sharper curves, and thereby save a lot of cutting and embankment; and also because the monorail itself, when trestles and rail are specially strengthened, can serve as its own bridge across roads, valleys and rivers.

Though the single-rail has come to the front of late, it must not be supposed that the two-rail track is for ever doomed to moderate speeds only. German engineers have built an electric two-rail military line between Berlin and Zossen, seventeen miles long, over which cars have been run at a hundred miles an hour. The line has very gradual curves, and in this respect is inferior to the more sinuous monorail. Its chief virtue is the method of applying motive power—a method common to both systems.

The steam locomotive creates its own motive force, and as long as it has fuel and water can act independently. The electric locomotive, on the other hand, receives its power through metallic conductors from some central station. Should the current fail all the traffic on the line is suspended. So far the advantage rests with the steamer. But as regards economy the superiority of the current is obvious. In the electric systems under consideration—the monorail and Berlin-Zossen—there is less weight per passenger to be shifted, since a comparatively light motor supersedes the heavy locomotive. The cars running singly, bridges and track are subjected to less strain, and cost less to keep in repair. But the greatest saving of all is made in fuel. A steam locomotive uses coal wastefully, sending a lot of latent power up the funnel in the shape of half-expanded steam. Want of space prevents the designer from fitting to a moving engine the more economical machinery to be found in the central power-station of an electric railway, which may be so situated—by the water-side or near a pit’s mouth—that fuel can be brought to it at a trifling cost. Not only is the expense of distributing coal over the system avoided, but the coal itself, by the help of triple and quadruple expansion engines should yield two or three times as much energy per ton as is developed in a locomotive furnace.

Many schemes are afoot for the construction of high-speed railways. The South-Eastern plans a monorail between Cannon Street and Charing Cross to avoid the delay that at present occurs in passing from one station to the other. We hear also of a projected railway from London to Brighton, which will reduce the journey to half-an-hour; and of another to connect Dover and London. It has even been suggested to establish monorails on existing tracks for fast passenger traffic, the expresses passing overhead, the slow and goods trains plodding along the double metals below.

But the most ambitious programme of all comes from the land of the Czar. M. Hippolyte Romanoff, a Russian engineer, proposes to unite St. Petersburg and Moscow by a line that shall cover the intervening 600 miles in three hours—an improvement of ten hours on the present time-tables. He will use T-shaped supports to carry two rails, one on each arm, from which the cars are to hang. The line being thus double will permit the cars—some four hundred in number—to run to and fro continuously, urged on their way by current picked up from overhead wires. Each car is to have twelve wheels, four drivers arranged vertically and eight horizontally, to prevent derailment by gripping the rail on either side. The stoppage or breakdown of any car will automatically stop those following by cutting off the current.

In the early days of railway history lines were projected in all directions, regardless of the fact whether they would be of any use or not. Many of these lines began, where they ended, on paper. And now that the high-speed question has cropped up, we must not believe that every projected electric railway will be built, though of the ultimate prevalence of far higher speeds than we now enjoy there can be no doubt.

The following is a time-table drawn up on the two-mile-per-minute basis.

A man leaving London at 10 a.m. would reach—

What would become of the records established in the “Race to the North” and by American “fliers”?

And what about continental travel?

Assuming that the Channel Tunnel is built—perhaps a rather large assumption—Paris will be at our very doors. A commercial traveller will step into the lightning express at London, sleep for two hours and twenty-four minutes and wake, refreshed, to find the blue-smocked Paris porters bawling in his ear. Or even if we prefer to keep the “little silver streak” free from subterranean burrows, he will be able to catch the swift turbine steamers—of which more anon—at Dover, slip across to Calais in half-an-hour, and be at the French capital within four hours of quitting London. And if M. Romanoff’s standard be reached, the latest thing in hats despatched from Paris at noon may be worn in Regent Street before two o’clock.

Such speeds would indeed produce a revolution in travelling comparable to the substitution of the steam locomotive for the stage coach. As has been pithily said, the effect of steam was to make the bulk of population travel, whereas they had never travelled before, but the effect of the electric railway will be to make those who travel travel much further and much oftener.