The fastest train of a road is the pride of all its employees; all the trainmen aspire to a place on the flyer. It never starts out on any run without the good wishes of the entire force, and it seldom puffs out of the train-shed and over the maze of rails in the yard without receiving the homage of those who happen to be within sight. It is impossible to tell of all the things that enter into the running of a fast train, but as it flashes across States, intersects cities, thunders past humble stations, and whistles imperiously at crossings, it attracts the attention of all. It is the spectacular thing that makes fame for the road, appears in large type in the newspapers, and makes havoc with the time-tables, while the steady-going passenger trains and labouring freights do the work and make the money.
HOW AUTOMOBILES WORK
Every boy and almost every man has longed to ride on a locomotive, and has dreamed of holding the throttle-lever and of feeling the great machine move under him in answer to his will. Many of us have protested vigorously that we wanted to become grimy, hard-working firemen for the sake of having to do with the "iron horse."
It is this joy of control that comes to the driver of an automobile which is one of the motor-car's chief attractions: it is the longing of the boy to run a locomotive reproduced in the grown-up.
The ponderous, snorting, thundering locomotive, towering high above its steel road, seems far removed from the swift, crouching, almost noiseless motor-car, and yet the relationship is very close. In fact, the automobile, which is but a locomotive that runs at will anywhere, is the father of the greater machine.
About the beginning of 1800, self-propelled vehicles steamed along the roads of Old England, carrying passengers safely, if not swiftly, and, strange to say, continued to run more or less successfully until prohibited by law from using the highways, because of their interference with the horse traffic. Therefore the locomotive and the railroads throve at the expense of the automobile, and the permanent iron-bound right of way of the railroads left the highways to the horse.
The old-time automobiles were cumbrous affairs, with clumsy boilers, and steam-engines that required one man's entire attention to keep them going. The concentrated fuels were not known in those days, and heat-economising appliances were not invented.