ENGLISH EFFICIENCY

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 95, 15 January 1918, Page 6

ENGLISH EFFICIENCY

ABOUT TRAIN SPEEDS. "I happen to be a collector of train speeds," writes an American correspondent. "English trains, on certain types of rune, ave extraordinarily fast. You can go from Bristol to London in exactly two hours. The distance is 117 miles. The rate of speed is, therefore, fifty-eight and a half miles an hour. The most • comparable run in America is from Philadelphia to New York on the Pennsylvania Railroad. The length of that run is ninety-two miles, ihe fastest train on it does it in two hours, 'its rate of speed is, therefore, fortysix miles an hour. It is a high rate. It is not so hi<;h as the rate from Bristol to London" but it is high; and the Pennsylvania's fast trains are fast trains'; and you know that they are fast trains; because the Pennsylvania Railroad provides you with a thrilling little folder which tells you that they are fast trains.. "Would the London and Great « estcrn Railway Company, on the run from Bristol to London, provide you with any similar information and elation? Certainly not. If you happen te be a bit soft in your wits on the subject of, train-speeds", you A\g Ijlie running time out of one big, fat, uncomfortable book, which you buy with your 1 own money at a news-stand,' and you dig the mileap;e out out of another big, fat, uncomfortable book, which you likewise buy for yourself with your own money, and you put these two figures together, and you discover by your own exertions that you are ridinc on one of the fastest trains in the world. Otherwise, if yon are a normal sane person and no collector of train-speeds, you simplv ride on one of the trains in the world mid nfver know it. "Such is English curiosity about details of efficiency. Such it was before the ivnr. Such it continues to be dm--, ing the war. .Tust one man, in the course of my whole stay of fivn months in England, was irregular enough to mention within my hearing an interesting technical fact about the war-work done by the Enclisb raihvav system. That man wp.s Mr. "Walter ITunciman. He mentioned it under pressure of nn interview. Hn was president of the Board of Trnde. Tho" Board of Trade- is tho Government Dponrtment that controls tho railways. I went, to the Board of Trade and saw Mr. Runoiman and confessed to him mv infirmity in the matter of troin-speods, and he sufferpd me to ask him questions about speeds nnd schedules and on-time records. From those records he fruvo me this fact: that, during tbn first several months of the war—that is. during the tiiiio of tli" ereatp-.t onnßOfstio'i and confusion—not one tr"in carrvinc troops or mirmlies oHWaliv on offipiil schedules was sis much as ten minutes late in arriving at its destination!"