"

CHAPTER XII

NEW PROBLEMS

"I have been thinking, Dad," said Steve that evening, while they sat at
dinner, "of the railroad story you told me this morning. It was some
yarn." His father laughed over the top of his coffee cup.

"It was, wasn't it?" replied he. "And the half was not told then. I was
in too much of a hurry to give you an idea of all the trials the poor
railroad builders encountered. Did it occur to you, for example, that
after the roads to the Pacific coast were laid their managers were
confronted by another great difficulty,--the difference in time between
the east and the west?"

"I never thought of that," was Steve's answer. "Of course the time must
have differed a lot."

"Indeed it did! Every little branch road followed the time peculiar to
its own section of the country, and the task of unifying this so that a
basis for a common time-table could be adopted was tremendous. A
convention of scientists from every section of the country was called to
see what could be done about the fifty-three different times in use by
the various railroads."

"Fifty-three!" ejaculated Stephen, with a grin. "Why, that was almost as
many as Heinz pickles."

"In this case the results of the fifty-three varieties were far more
menacing, I am afraid, than those of the fifty-seven," said his father,
with a smile, "for travel under such a regime was positively unsafe."

"I can see that it would be. What did they do?"

"Well, after every sort of suggestion had been presented it was decided
to divide the country up into four immense parts, separated from one
another by imaginary lines running north and south."

"Degrees of longitude?"

"Precisely!" returned Mr. Tolman, gratified that the boy had caught the
point so intelligently. "The time of each of these sections jumped
fifteen degrees, or one hour, and the railroads lying in each district
were obliged to conform to the standard time of their locality. Until
this movement went into effect there had been, for example, six
so-called standard times to reckon with in going from Boston to
Washington."

"I don't see why everybody didn't get smashed up!"

"I don't either; and I fancy the passengers and the railroad people
didn't," declared Mr. Tolman. "But with the new state of things the
snarl was successfully untangled and the roads began to be operated on a
more scientific basis. Then followed gradual improvements in cars which
as time went on were mad