“The engine will be stopped by means of these powerful brakes, applied directly to the axles, which will, of course, render the train motionless. As the locomotive has two driving-wheels, the engineer can bring a double power to bear, as you see. Each is independent of the other, so that if one gives way the other is still more than sufficient to keep the engine stationary.”
“Thank you; but the car?”
“Oh, the car is not attached to the engine at all; and should the engineer lose the control of his machine, which is not at all likely, the car can be brought to a stand-still by independent brakes of its own. You see the engine goes up behind, and in front, down; and the car is simply pushed forward, or follows it.”
“So that you consider it—.”
“Perfectly safe, madam, perfectly safe.”
“Thank you. One question more. Suppose all these things break at once. What then? Where would we go?”
“That, madam, would depend on what sort of a life you had led.”
I have still a consolation for the timid. Ten years’ trial has confirmed the declaration of its projectors, that they would make the road as safe or safer than the ordinary railway. No life has been lost by an injury to a passenger during that time. Besides, what is the difference? After its day, the railway will pass like the stage-coach—that is, unless you believe, as you do not, that the world and all progress are to stop with ourselves.
The affable lady hostess told me that she paid an annual rental of ten thousand dollars for her palace of ice; nominally for a year, but really for a term of only seventy-six days, this being the limit of the season upon the summit. During the remaining two hundred and eighty-nine days the house is closed. During four or five months it is buried, or half-buried, in a snow-drift. Of this large sum, three thousand dollars go to the Pingree heirs. These facts may tend to modify the views of those who think the charges exorbitant, if such there are.