The railroad journeys of our grandfathers were very different from our own. In their day the rails were wooden beams or stringers laid on horizontal blocks of stone. Strips of iron were fastened with spikes to the tops of the wooden rails. The cars were small, each seating only a few passengers. The locomotive was crude. Its greatest speed was about fifteen miles an hour. It could not climb a hill, and when a grade was reached, the cars had to be pulled up or let down with ropes managed by a stationary engine. No cab sheltered the engineer; no brake checked the speed. Sometimes the spikes fastening the iron strips to the tops of the wooden rails worked loose, and these strips curled up and penetrated the bottoms of the cars, greatly to the annoyance and fright of the traveler. The bridges in those days were roofed. The smokestack of the locomotive, being too tall to pass under the roof, was made in two joints or sections fastened together with hinges. When the train approached a bridge, the top section of the stack was lowered. As wood only was used for fuel, the stack emitted a shower of sparks, smoke, and hot cinders. The passengers coughed and sputtered, and covered their eyes, mouths, and noses with handkerchiefs. The trip from Chicago to New York is about a thousand miles, over prairie, river, and mountain. Should you make the journey between these cities over the Pennsylvania Railroad of to-day, there would be little danger of conflict because two rival trains might want the track at the same time. Nor would you have to wait while ropes pulled the train up a grade, for the locomotive can climb the hills. Instead of the old wooden rails with their strips of iron, there is a double track of solid steel rails all the way. The landscape would fly past you at the rate of a mile a minute, instead of fifteen miles an hour. Let us suppose that you leave Chicago at 2.45 o'clock P.M., central time. Before the train starts you could telephone to a friend without leaving the car. You might sit down, in an elegant dining-car, to a dinner of all the delicacies the market could afford. You might occupy your own exclusive compartment in a luxuriously equipped Pullman car, lit by electric bulbs, or you could spend the evening reading the magazines, newspapers, and books provided in the train library. You might write at a comfortable desk with train stationery, or dictate letters and telegrams to the train stenographer. You are provided with hot and cold water, bathing facilities, and a barber shop. A maid could be summoned to the service of women and children; and a valet would be in attendance to sponge and press clothing over night. You would arrive in New York the next morning at 9.45 o'clock, having traveled the thousand miles in eighteen hours.