hicles will
make the most of their advantages in offering to travellers a cosy and
comfortable retreat during the whole of their journey.

Road-motors, comfortably furnished, will therefore be mounted upon low
railway trucks of special construction, designed to permit of their
being run on and off the trucks from the level of the ground. The plan
of mounting a road vehicle upon a truck suited to receive it has
already been adopted for some purposes, notably for the removal of
furniture and similar goods; and it is capable of immense extension.
An express train will run through on the leading routes from which
roads branch out in all directions, and as it approaches each station
it will uncouple the truck and "motor-omnibus" intended for that
destination. The latter will be shunted on to a loopline. The
road-motor will be set free from its truck and will then proceed on
its journey by road.

When a similar system has been fully adapted for the conveyance of
goods by rail and road experiments will then be commenced, on a
systematic basis, with the object of rendering possible the picking up
of packages, and even of vehicles, without stopping the train. The
most pressing problem which now awaits solution in the railway world
is how to serve roadside stations by express trains. "Through"
passengers demand a rapid service; while the roadside traffic goes
largely to the line that offers the most frequent trains. In the
violent strain and effort to combine these two desiderata the most
successful means yet adopted have been those which rely upon the
destruction of enormous quantities of costly engine-power by means of
quick-acting brakes. The amount of power daily converted into the
mischievous heat of friction by the brakes on some lines of railway
would suffice to work the whole of the traffic several times over; but
the sacrifice has been enforced by the public demand for a train that
shall run fast and shall yet stop as frequently as possible.

Progress in this direction has reached its limit. A brake that shall
conserve, instead of destroying, the power of the train's inertia on
pulling up at a station is urgently required; but the efforts towards
supplying the want have not, so far, proved very successful. Each
carriage or truck must be fitted with an air-pump so arranged that, on
the application of the brake by the engine-driver, it shall drive back
a corresponding amount of air to that which has been liberated from