Relay

“ The Fast Mail Where the rails converge to the station yard She stands one moment, breathing hard, And then, with a snort and a clang of steel, She settles her strength to the stubborn wheel, And out, through the tracks that lead astray, Cautiously, slowly she picks her way, And gathers her muscle and guards her nerve, When she swings her nose to the westward curve, And takes the grade, which slopes to the sky, With a bound of speed and a conquering cry. ”

“ Fast time and crowds of passengers! Engines carry a power of steam, and don't you forget it. Steam-gauge shows a hundred and enough all the time. Lively train crews, too. When the conductor shouts 'All a-b-o-a-r-d!' you can hear him to the next hallelujah station. Every train lamp shines like a head-light. ”

“ Already the little railway has shot ahead at an amazing rate; though whether track laid in such a hurry is really going to make for speed in the long run is a question on which the trainmen, sipping their pink lemonade at the canteen counter, have their own opinions. For no train, it seems, can make the run at present without leaving the track at least once during the journey. ”

“ And this wonderful machine, while speeding through the air with the velocity of an express train, can be halted almost instantly and whirled about on its tail. It will be seen that it is the 129 man at the levers who makes or breaks a journey in the air. ”

“ Only two strokes for such as Casey or Neale! Ten spikes to a rail—four hundred rails to a mile! ... How many million times had brawny arms swung and sledges clanged!
Forward every day the work-trains crept westward, closer and closer to that great hour when they would meet the work-trains coming east.
The momentum now of the road-laying was tremendous. The spirit that nothing could stop had become embodied in a scientific army of toilers, a mass, a machine, ponderous, irresistible, moving on to the meeting of the rails. ”

“ North of the train, to a din of clanking, pounding and shoveling, a throng of men were laying ties and rails, driving spikes and tightening bolts, in the construction of further short stretches of track. ”

“ The ease with which even small motions are carried to a great distance may be judged by the fact that when the ground is frozen the horizontal pendulum will indicate the jarring due to a railway train at the distance of a mile or more from the track. ”

“ About two minutes before the hour, the end (Q) comes against the contact (S) , and completes the circuit of the local battery (IT, Fig. 8) through the starting magnet (M, Fig. 9) and sets the clock-train (shown in Fig. 7) in motion, pressing the cam (C) against the vertical bars, disconnecting them from their instruments, and connecting them respectively, in groups as already shown, with the relays (V, V, V") , in readiness to send a "preliminary" current to the line wires. ”

“ The mass-movement of a train which is brought to a state of rest by powerful brakes, is spent in the friction of the wheels of the train upon the rails, and there it appears as heat in the heated rails and as sparks thrown from under the wheels. ”

“ When the train approaches a station, in order to bring it to a stand at the right spot, he must take into account the speed and weight of his train, the number of brakemen, the grade of the road,—whether upward, downward, or level,—the state of the track,—whether dry, wet, or icy, &c., &c. ”

“ Till railroads shall be built through this country, the best mode of traveling, and the most healthful, is to walk, and ‘wade.’ As for speed in a journey of a few hundred miles, a man on foot will out-travel a bull, or even a good horse. Persons who travel in a ‘tipoia,’ amid the rattle of sleigh bells, and the shouts of their carriers, are not in a position to receive my statement, but I base it, not on a theory, but on facts from the field of action. ”

“ All nations are being chained together by iron roads or lines of swift steamers, and everybody travels. Locomotion is the order of the day, a sign of the times, and electricity is the great factor that has brought it about. ”

“ When an express train suffers in such a way as to show some special danger arising from great velocity, we find ourselves to some degree concerned personally in the investigation which follows, if we travel generally by quick trains. ”

“ On certain stretches of the line, trains pause beside pretty buildings, where fountains play in gardens ablaze with blossoms, and where in dainty observation-towers telescopes give you intimacy with the stretches of eternal snow high overhead. ”

“ A train moving at 20 miles an hour against a wind with a velocity of 30 miles increases the latter to 50, so far as the brakeman is concerned; and if rain or sleet is falling, the force of it on his hands and face is very severe. ”

“ There is a double track for one-half of the distance upon each of the four inclined planes, and a balance car runs down at one end of the huge wire cable, while the train is drawn up at the other extremity. ”

“ Let us suppose that from a railway terminus trains are dispatched every quarter of an hour, and that the trains proceed with a common and uniform velocity of, say, one mile per minute. Now, a person who remains stationary, at any point on the railway, observes the trains passing at regular intervals of fifteen minutes, no matter at what part of the line he may be placed. ”

“ TRAVEL The railroad track is miles away, And the day is loud with voices speaking, Yet there isn't a train goes by all day But I hear its whistle shrieking. All night there isn't a train goes by, Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming But I see its cinders red on the sky, And hear its engine steaming. My heart is warm with the friends I make, And better friends I'll not be knowing, Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take, No matter where it's going. ”

“ Constantly in the long trains of animals descending to the coast, a slip of the foot or a charge from behind, for they all come down the steep track with a jolting shuffle, sends mule and its load over the ledge. ”

“ Both engineer and fireman realized this. The backward swing was caught, and down the course they had just come their locomotive sped with frightful velocity. It was a mad race, but they had the advantage. ”

“ The speed that would give the enormous distance of thirteen leagues an hour lasts fifteen minutes at the most in racing, after which the animal is exhausted. Note in passing the superiority of the railway engine, the locomotive, in regard to rapidity. ”

“ Years may go by, and the wheel in the river
Wheel as it wheels for us, children, to-day,
Wheel and keep roaring and foaming for ever
Long after all of the boys are away.
Home for the Indies and home from the ocean,
Heroes and soldiers we all will come home;
Still we shall find the old mill wheel in motion,
Turning and churning that river to foam.
You with the bean that I gave when we quarrelled, ”

“ But it’s ‘Special train for Atkins’ when the trooper’s on the tide,
The troopship’s on the tide, my boys, the troopship’s on the tide,
O it’s ‘Special train for Atkins’ when the trooper’s on the tide. ”

“ Horses and mules, and even sail cars, made more rapid progress than did the earliest locomotive. ”

“ The driver and conductor on top were still, too, or only spoke at long intervals, in low tones, as is the way of men in the midst of invisible dangers. We listened to rain-drops pattering on the roof; and the grinding of the wheels through the muddy gravel; and the low wailing of the wind; and all the time we had that absurd sense upon us, inseparable from travel at night in a close-curtained vehicle, the sense of remaining perfectly still in one place, notwithstanding the jolting and swaying of the vehicle, the trampling of the horses, and the grinding of the wheels. ”

“ Windmills, which are used in the great plains of Holland and North Germany to supply the want of falling water, afford another instance of the action of velocity. The sails are driven by air in motion—by wind. ”

“ In the road ships must ride in 30, 40, or 50 fathom water, not above half a mile from the shore at farthest: and if there are many ships they must ride close one by another. ”

“ Stations were built at intervals averaging fifteen miles apart. A rider's route covered three stations, with an exchange of horses at each, so that he was expected at the beginning to cover close to forty-five miles—a good ride when one must average fifteen miles an hour. ”

“ In the United States three new methods of transportation made their appearance at almost the same time—the steamboat, the canal boat, and the rail car. ”

“ The signal for the train's departure was a very bright red; that is about as passionate a statement as I can get into that scene. ”

“ Trains, like time and tide, stop for no one. ”

“ Very soon the train came puffing up into the station; then two or three minutes, and the doors were slammed to, the guard whistled, and the train glided away, leaving behind it only clouds of white smoke and some very heavy hearts. ”

“ We have affairs in different places; and hence railways were invented. Railways separated us infallibly from our friends; and so telegraphs were made that we might communicate speedily at great distances. ”

“ The railroad originally was as completely dissociated from steam propulsion as was the ship. ”

“ To make a railroad round the world available to all mankind is equivalent to grading the whole surface of the planet. ”

“ While no one railroad can completely duplicate another line, two or more may compete at particular points. ”

“ You can always tell the old river hand by the way in which he stretches himself out upon the cushions at the bottom of the boat, and encourages the rowers by telling them anecdotes about the marvellous feats he performed last season. ”

“ Well, in our country you’d generally get to somewhere else—if you ran very fast for a long time as we’ve been doing.
Red Queen
A slow sort of country. Now here you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that. ”

“ To reach the end of a day, natures that are slightly nervous, as mine was, make use, like motor-cars, of different 'speeds.' There are mountainous, uncomfortable days, up which one takes an infinite time to pass, and days downward sloping, through which one can go at full tilt, singing as one goes. ”

“ The passenger booked by this history, was on the coach-step, getting in; the two other passengers were close behind him, and about to follow. He remained on the step, half in the coach and half out of; they remained in the road below him. They all looked from the coachman to the guard, and from the guard to the coachman, and listened. The coachman looked back and the guard looked back, and even the emphatic leader pricked up his ears and looked back, without contradicting. ”

“ On 2nd January we had made 11,340 miles, or 5,250 French leagues, since our starting-point in the Japan Seas. ”

“ We're going forward with our shuttle flights, we're going forward to build our space station, and we are going forward with research on a new Orient Express that could, by the end of the next decade, take off from Dulles Airport, accelerate up to 25 times the speed of sound, attaining low earth orbit or flying to Tokyo within two hours. ”

“ A sudden dart when a little over a hundred feet from the end of the track, or a little over 120 feet from the point at which it rose into the air, ended the flight. ”

“ Most versed in nautical charts, he knew better than any other the true art of navigation, of which it is a certain proof that he knew by his genius, and his intrepidity, without any one having given him the example, how to attempt the circuit of the globe, which he had almost completed. ”

“ For to reach a port, we must sail—sail, not lie at anchor, sail, not drift. ”

“ The railroad was more than a means of transportation to Gopher Prairie. It was a new god; a monster of steel limbs, oak ribs, flesh of gravel, and a stupendous hunger for freight; a deity created by man that he might keep himself respectful to Property, as elsewhere he had elevated and served as tribal gods the mines, cotton-mills, motor-factories, colleges, army. ”

“ Sunrise is a necessary concomitant of long railway journeys, just as are hard-boiled eggs, illustrated papers, packs of cards, rivers upon which boats strain but make no progress. ”