In fact the entire railway system with its millions of cars operating on hundreds of roads has grown complex and yet standardized. To get a common gauge that cars from one road might pass to another required an act of Congress. At first companies adopted diverse gauges that their cars could not go onto another road, but when transcontinental roads were to be built and through lines of traffic established President Lincoln was called upon to set a gauge. He “side-tracked” the matter and threw it onto Congress, who established the distance 4 feet 8¹⁄₂ inches as the standard width between rails. Without the telegraph the present amplification of railroad business could not have taken place. The early trains traveled by time schedule. No extra train could be added, although looking-posts were established at the stations up which the train men could climb to watch for the smoke of an approaching train. Now every division point must have its coterie of dependable dispatchers. Each wire carries multiple messages. Electric signals and other safety devices to lessen accidents are universal, while the bewildering network of tracks in the ordinary city yard are operated easily from distant towers by interlocking switches. That railroads have brought about an industrial and social revolution, that they have increased enormously the country’s transportation, that they have thus been very instrumental in bringing the present civilization to its high and uniform state of attainment, cannot be denied. [Illustration: © _Underwood and Underwood_ MODERN LOCOMOTIVES 1. Showing the Growth in the Size of Locomotives During the Past Twenty Years. The Smaller Locomotive is an _American_ Type Class Engine of 1900. The Larger is a _Mountain Type_ Engine. Both are Used on the C. B. & Q. R. R. Photographed at Lincoln, Nebr., Sept., 1922. 2. One of the New Gearless _Electric_ Locomotives Built by the General Electric Company for the C. M. & St. Paul R. R.]