immense Tube.
The motor power is called Sky-rallic, and is communicated throughout the
whole Tube Line by Brosis, a porous metal running in thin narrow bands.
This Tube Line runs without a curve from one division of the road to
another, except in rare cases where a bend is absolutely necessary. In a
mountainous region I noticed a stretch of Tube Line without a bend
running sixty miles, according to our measurement. On prairies, the
unbroken stretches are much longer.
The cars in this Tube Line travel with fearful rapidity. It requires two
or three miles to reach dashing speed, after which a run of fifty miles
is made in eight or ten minutes. No precaution need be taken by the
motorman as nothing can get into the tube and only one train is allowed
in a section at one time. Certain hours are given to passenger traffic
and others to freight traffic. An immense amount of freight can thus be
carried in one hour. It is possible to send a through freight car two
thousand miles in ten or twelve hours. Express cars are never connected
with passengers cars. They are run on their own schedule and sometimes
attached to freight cars.
This immense Tube Line was built by the government at great expense, but
it is proving very satisfactory. No storms or floods interfere. No
grade-crossings and no flying dust are known in this Tube Line which has
brought the ends of Ploid together. Think of a person crossing a vast
continent in a day, for the cars in this Tube Line run with frightful
speed across the long stretches of level. They make as high as a
three-hundred mile run in forty minutes, without stopping.
The signal and telegraph stations are fifty miles apart, sometimes more.
In these long runs the motorman stops only when a signal is turned
against him or if by accident he discerns a train in the Tube ahead of
him.
The Tube Line is lighted by oval transparencies, in size and shape
resembling an egg, soldered in specially prepared holes of the Tube.
The cars are not supplied with air from the tube. Fresh air is obtained
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