Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 206, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 August 1910 — AND YET FASTER IS DEMAND [ARTICLE]

AND YET FASTER IS DEMAND

American Public Is Speed Crazy, DeI Prominent Railroad Official. “The American public is speed crazy,” declares a man at the head of the operating department of one of the great trunk lines. "Every day, every week, our time table is subjected to a compelling outside pressure—the demand for faster trains. Our eritire organization Is geared up to the effort to meet it —these offices and clerks, that train shed down there, the yards and roadbed, and the then along the line from trainmaster down tp wiper—all our equipment from master mechanic down to the melter that made the silicon in'the engine drivers, ‘Give us faster trains.’ And we’ve got to find a way to do it—or some other road will. “It really isn’t a question of saving time with the speed maniacs, for, in my observation, it matters little with most travelers what they do with their time when they get to. their destination. But get them there quickly—that’s the cry. The infection has spread to one and all. It’s a kind of germ disease. In a way, it is funny; or, rather, it would be funny if the problem were not so desperate with us. “One day last February one of our Philadelphia expresses was four minutes late. Only four minutes late in zero weather, with frosty rails and skidding wheels. It should have been forty. Yet, an eminent financier cami into my office and entered a complaint. But r here’s the point—he wasted twenty of his valuable minutes putting in that complaint!”— Munsey’s.