The World's Largest Station.
The South Terminal in Boston not only is the largest station in the world, but sends out daily more than 400 trains, nearly twice the number despatched from the Grand Central Station by the three roads starting from there. The next largest number sent from any station in this country is about 350 from the Boston and Maine terminal in Boston, and the next about 325 from the Broad Street Station, Philadelphia. Then come the Grand Central Station, New York, and the Reading Terminal, Philadelphia.
But these figures do not equal those of the great London terminals. There one station sends out 700 trains daily, the greatest number from any one station in the world, and all of the twelve great terminals send out large numbers of trains.
Including all suburban trains, and figuring on a mean average of winter and summer, the regular scheduled trains leave the four great centers in the following numbers daily, the figures being for all roads and approximately correct: New York city, 1,400; Boston, 1,000; Philadelphia, 850; Chicago, 850. No other American city has 400.
Good Road-Beds Abroad.
The road-bed and the operating equipment are better in England and some parts of France and Germany than in America, and, owing to the ever-prevailing precautions, accidents are only about one-fifth as frequent as in America. All the principal roads in England have two tracks and many main lines have four.
In this respect Americans are making great improvements now, as the Pennsylvania is four-tracked from New York to Pittsburgh, and the New Haven from New York to New Haven, while the New York Central is three-tracked part of the way to Albany, and four-tracked from there to Buffalo.
Turning to continental Europe it is found that France alone indulges in really fast trains, and possibly she is ahead even of England in the number of trains running regularly above fifty miles an hour. The greatest travel route on the Continent is from Paris south to Lyons, Marseilles, and the Mediterranean, and here are found fine and fast trains.
The run from Paris to Marseilles, 585 miles, is made in 750 minutes, with only six stops. Many of the shorter runs, such as from Paris to Calais, to the Belgian frontier, etc., are at the rate of from fifty-eight to sixty-two miles an hour for the regular schedule.