"The preparation of railways for war uses is not confined to the planning of the system itself. It extends to the provision and adaptation of stations, to the duplication of the lines, to the defence of bridges and other structures, to the provision of rolling-stock. Considerable extension may be looked for in all these directions. However important the motor-car and the aeroplane may be in military transport, it is probable that the railways will always be the most satisfactory means of conveying heavy material. "The railway carriage itself can be adapted for military uses. We have tank cars, cold-storage cars, hospital trains; above all, we have armored trains and truck gun-carriages. "Railways will perhaps render more effective service than ever in the matter of bringing to the required spot huge guns too heavy to be transported in any other way. These will be fired without leaving the rails. The truck gun-carriage is so arranged as to withstand the recoil; this result is obtained by placing on the ground, once the carriage is stationary, supports which take the load off the wheels. The recoil is transferred to the ground so that the rails do not suffer. "Whether the object is to organize a supply line, to transfer reinforcements, or to carry heavy material to its destination, it may be of service to provide for the absence of normal lines by laying down rails along the road. Both the Germans and ourselves have done this very frequently. A narrow gauge of sixty centimeters is generally used. A team of skilled sappers takes about three hours to lay down about one kilometer of railway." AMERICA'S SHIPPING PREPARATION The two great means of transport--railways and ships--furnished in this war the greatest examples of modified state socialism which America had yet seen. As to the general way in which they were controlled these two services show a fairly close family resemblance, though the forms of organization were technically quite different. The larger railroads and the larger ships were taken possession of by the Government and were operated by the same people, in general, who operated them before, but under orders of the Railroad Administration and the Shipping Board respectively. New ships and new railroad equipment were built on plans made under federal direction, and in both cases the output was being largely standardized. The heads of the Shipping Board and the Emergency Fleet Corporation were men drawn from private business, while the regional directors of the railroad regions and the federal managers of the separate roads were railroad men, usually managing their own roads, under the government's direction. Thus in both cases private enterprise furnished the traditions and training of the personnel that made this experiment in socialism.