Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 June 1876 — From the Atlantic to the Pacific in Eighty-Four Hours. [ARTICLE]

From the Atlantic to the Pacific in Eighty-Four Hours.

The “ race across the continent’’ has been run and won. It takes one’s breath away to think of it The man still lives whose “Two Years Before the -Mast” were occupied chiefly in making the journey to San Francisco and back. Even young people remember when gold lias discovered and the rush for California began, how the journey Was the great obstacle between the old States and the new El Dorado; how to go to California was more of an undertaking than to go to Palestine or to India; how long farewells were taken, as for a separation which must be for years anij was quite possible forever; how the emigrant leaving the Missouri as Boon as the grass had started hardly reached the Sacramento before Autumn, after hardships such as only the boldest or the most* ignorant oared face. And now a party of players make the journey luxuriously in just r alf a week! It certainly is something which will justify a little glorification, a sensation, which thrills us, however much we analyse it, and the more so the more we think of it. Why, the flowers which the popular actor received as the curtain fell in New York the night before he took the train for the Pacific were still fresh in his hand as he landed at San Francisco. Our country of magnificent distances seems converted into a country neighborhood, where every man can, at need, see any other with a little pains, and where, consequently, there is a community of interests, and a kindly fellow-feeling which really makes us one people—almost one family. ~..

As we said, in commenting on the journey when it was as yet only a project, no extraordinary speed was needed to make this journey in eighty-four hours, no speeds exceeding those regularly made by many English and by some American trains. The extraordinary and unexampled feature was the maintenance of mat speed for so great, so enormous a distance —such a distance as a train could run in nc other country, for want of a route long enough, or a country broad enough to hold the route. There are, however, some considerations which make the average speed itself remarkable under the circumstances. as it would not have been in Europe. These are; me fact that it is exceptional, mat me locomotives of the country are not specially designed for high speeds with light trains, but for moderate speeds with heavier trains; and, especially, mat me railroads of me country are not constructed for such headlong speed—not simply because they are (most or mem) less solidly constructed and with more and sharper curves, but especially because they are wofully open to obstruction bv passing mer, animals and vehicles. The very brat of the lines over which the Jarrett & Palmer special train passed last week not only crosses most of the highways on its line at grade, but also has level street-crossings probably in every city on its road, and cannot possibly, with safety, run at full speed over miles of its line. On an English road, with hardly a level crossing from one end to me other, with easy curves and a perfect track, me engine can be pushed to its utmost and kept at its highest speed from the beginning to the end of me fine. But how can you run five miles through city streets at sixty miles an hour? You might almost as well discharge a rifled cannon down the street

There were, however, two remarkable feats in me running of this train, wholly unexampled, we believe, in me annals of railroads. The first of these was me running of me train without stopping , and of course with a single locomotive, me whole length of me Pennsylvania Railroad from Jersey citj to Pittsburgh, 439% miles; and me other the hauling of me train over me whole iength of the Central Pacific Railroad, 881 miles, without changing me engines, though with several stops. The care which composed this train were a baggage car, a smoking and “ commissary” car, and the Pullman hotel car “ Marlborough.” The locomotive which performed me great feat of running 440 miles without stopping was an “ American” engine constructed at the Altoona shops, of me Pennsylvania Railroad Company.

From Pittsburgh to Chicago and from Chicago to Council Bluffs me run was made over roads which have a large traffic, and for most of their length but a single track, so mat greater skill was required to avoid delays by other trains. No such delays occurred, however, at least none ware reported, and me only interruptions to me run as laid out appear to have been on me Pacific Railroads, where, on me Union Pacific, a hot journal is said to have caused twenty minutes’ delay, and on the Central Pacific steep grades, going down the Sierras, me brake blocks on the Pennsylvania cars wore out and had to be replaced, and filially two additional cars were attached to make their brake power available. On all me roads west of Pittsburgh, however, stoos had to be made for water, and on all bar the Central Pacific me usual changes of engines were made. x_ For the entire journey by rail from Jersey City to Oakland, 3,313 miles, the time consumed was 83 hours, 82 minutes, 7 ■woods, and the average speed, including all stops and delays, was 89.7 miles per aWar; From New York to San Francisco, 3,316 miles, including the two terries, the time was 83 hours, 59 minutes, 16 seconds.—Railroad Gazette. , n " SS • T —John Scanlan, a Pittsfield (Mass.) gardener, was found dead in his room the other evening. Being afflicted with a lame back, he had been ordered to bathe it with a mixture of laudanum, belladonna andcapetcum, and, as a three-ounce bottle partly foil was found by his side. It is supposed be swallowed the medicine by