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National Geographic : 1936 Nov
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THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE Photograph by J. Baylor Roberts TRAIN AHOY! AND A "WEST SIDE COWBOY" AHEAD On sectors of Tenth Avenue riders go ahead of freight trains, waving red flags. Since 1849 a city ordinance has compelled this safety measure, but the "forty-niners" soon will disappear. Already skyscraper warehouses stand like top-heavy skeletons where lower stories have been cut away around the supports to make way for new tracks (see page 563). To enable any citizen to do this, the rail roads built in Washington a terminal cost ing $16,308,277.01 (the one cent on the official figure attests the statistical exacti tude of railroads); the Pennsylvania has bored tunnels under Baltimore costing $7, 500,000; has spent $25,000,000 for a new station and tracks to facilitate his ride over and around parts of Philadelphia; has dug deep beneath the Hudson River and East River a 7-mile tube and erected a world famous station in New York, which entire improvement cost $125,000,000. Of course, these are only a few major items; the complete accounting to make possible this one 226-mile run at high speed, safety, and comfort would have to include costs of trains, locomotives, rights of way, roadbed, and maintenance. Then the Pennsylvania spent $100,000, 000 for the electrification of its line between Washington and New York. Even had the knowledge been available in John Quincy Adams's time, the entire national debt of 1826 would not have been enough to defray the cost of electrification. The Pennsylvania likes to talk of "fleets of trains" which give frequent, dependable service. But one must ride on some train, so let us consider the Congressional. Legislation has been framed on that train, friends meet friends in its dining car and lounge. They have to talk faster now, because the time has been cut to 3 hours and 35 minutes; soon it will be 3/2 hours. The power already is there, in its mam moth electric engines. Increasing speed 552
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