FAST EXPRESS TRAINS. A Comparison Between Those of England and America.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 272, 13 June 1888, Page 3

FAST EXPRESS TRAINS. A Comparison Between Those of England and America.

A I'liu \(.»»w who has )u»{j returned from England -s tin* people out there hear ot thu ' limited. ' cannon-ball,' 'lightning,' ' g-whi/V ' thunderbolt " and other ta&t ttains on Ameiican railroads-, and ha\e, thiough Hie exlravagafiee of the-e nicknamr->, gained the idea that when ankecs yet in a lniuj to go tome place the,> aie not sat i-tiul with anything "-lower than a ruile a minute. ' Imagine iheii -surprise I,'1 ,' ta.> s this gentleman, 'when told that our ' liuhtiiinj; ' trains run only thirty-live milo an hour. Ft i-> in England that jou can realh tra\el fa.st, and they make no ado about it, either. \\ hilo 1 was abroad, the ni'H limited trains fiom Chicago to Omaha and Kan s a- Cit\ weieputon. TheEnglL-h-man spoke of that, and wondered it the rival trains made moie than a mile a minute. I s-howed him a time-table - 500 miles to Omaha, some -ixteen hours* .-peed, thiityone miles an hour. F;\en the limited tiains on which extra fare is charged inn lc-s tlvm forl\ mile.-* an hour bitween New York and Chicago, and the wonderful ia-t mail, that ulides into Chicago atmoc ridiculous hour ol midnight, tra\els onl> thiity one miles an hour. In ftn<jlandt t hiid-cla"-- passunjrci.s lide from forty to forty-five miles an hour, and nobod} pa\e\tia fare on account of speed. Prom'A'ew Voik to Albany is 142 mile* by a splendid track. There arc ten express tiains daily between these citic.-, and their average ->peed is twenty-nine miles an hour. IJitween London and Shetlield, 162 miles, thedreat Nor thorn inns nine trainsdaily, with an average speed ol torty-fivc mile- an hour. One train muke-a lift,\ miles an hour. Between New York and Boston the ti\ crane i-> thirty miles an hour, and the iaslesl, a train composed exclusively of elecpinn; cats, make» thirty-nine miles an hour. Bliwcch London and Manchester, 203 mile-*, theic are twenty train 1 - daily, witli an ;n civ£e speed of forty miles an hour and sony; trains making titt}. Between London and (ilasc-ow, 440 miles, there are thirteen daily expresses, and their a\eraue speed i" almost iorfc ( \ miles an hour, one train beiup much faster than this. All over England and Scotland expre-s'trains 1 , composed of first, second and third class carriages, make from thirlj-fivc to fifty miles an hour, while in America a thirty -ii\o mile tiain is called! a stroke of li^htninQf. The fast recrular train in America is one on the Baltimore and Ohio, which makes the forty miles between Washington and Baltimore in fifty minute?. There are thice or four fast trains between New York and Philadelphia covering fortysix miles an hour. Between Liverpool and Manchester there are fifty-two trains daily, none of them slower than forty- h'\e miles an hour, and four of them making fifty-one and one-third miles an hour. When we get some trains like that we can begin to talk of ' fast mails ' and ' thunderbolt-.