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—
| Destination | Miles Away | Arrival Time |
| Brighton | 50 | 10.25 a.m. |
| Portsmouth | 60 | 10.30 a.m. |
| Birmingham | 113 | 10.57 a.m. |
| Leeds | 188 | 11.34 a.m. |
| Liverpool | 202 | 11.41 a.m. |
| Holyhead | 262 | 12.11 p.m. |
| Edinburgh | 400 | 1.20 p.m. |
| Aberdeen | 540 | 2.30 p.m. |
What would become of the records established in the “Race to the North” and by American “fliers”?