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And then the train sped away again, with that passionless indifference to human sympathies or curiosity peculiar to express-trains; the one baggage-truck was wheeled into the station again; the station-door was locked; and the station-master went home.
So I says, says I, I'll jes' run over to the station an' see what's doin' there, more by token, as it was near time for the express, an' it kind of livens ye up a bit to see them express-trains come in, they're nice an' bustlin' like, with a sort of go in 'em; an' after she come in, there was a freight-train come, an' there was lots of freight put off, an' guess what I see, Jim, among it."
You were tricked by the sound into almost believing you could see them. The six-inch shells passed with a whistling roar that was quite terrifying. It was as though just above you invisible telegraph-wires had jangled, and their rush through the air was like the roar that rises to the car window when two express-trains going in opposite directions pass at sixty miles an hour.
"If it did," replied Emma McChesney good-naturedly, "I couldn't afford to live here," and disappeared into the kitchen followed by the agent, who babbled ever and anon of views, of Hudsons, of express-trains, of parks, as is the way of agents from Fiftieth Street to One Hundred and 'Umpty-ninth.
Engineers to whom Edison communicated his ideas were unanimous in declaring the thing an impossibility; it was like driving two express-trains into each other at full speed to crack a great rock placed between them; that no practical machinery could be built to stand the terrific impact and strains. Edison's convictions were strong, however, and he persisted.
Few companies in America have any idea what their express-trains cost them. Indeed, the proper means of obtaining quick transport are not at all understood. It is not by forcing the train at an excessively high speed, but by reducing the number of stops.
In this war the onslaughts have been so terrific and so unceasing, the artillery fire especially has been so entirely beyond human experience, that the men fight in a kind of daze. Instead of arousing fear the tumult acts as an anaesthetic. With forests uprooted, houses smashing about them, and unseen express-trains hurtling through space, they are too stunned to be afraid.
A minute or two later, from a clump of trees close by, there came in rapid succession four splitting crashes and four invisible express-trains went screeching toward the German lines to explode, with the roar that scatters death, on a spot as far away and as invisible from me as Washington Square is from Grant's Tomb.
When one bears in mind the fact that this road is the main artery connecting one hundred and twenty millions of people at one end with over two hundred millions at the other, this seems amazing; but still more so when one considers that in the United States, with a population of, say, eighty millions in all, we have five great trunk-lines across the continent, each running large express-trains several times a day.
There may be seen upon the road from Boston to Springfield engines with wheels nearly seven feet in diameter, used for drawing light express-trains; while upon the roads ascending the Alleghanies may be seen wheels of only three and a half feet diameter, which are employed in drawing trains up the steep grades.
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