There are instances too in the Northeast where single units are still the best solution of this most perplexing transport problem. And in the Northeast there is a considerable proportion of undeveloped water-power still remaining. But whether this be drawn upon chiefly, or the coal at the mine-head, the engineers of the super-power zone plan eventually will decide; the fact remains that here in a strip beginning at Washington and ending at Portland, Maine, and stretching from one hundred to one hundred and fifty miles inland, is the scene of our greatest railroad congestion, and the scene where in any traffic crisis the possibility of breakdown becomes most imminent. Yet across this strip and through it the laggard steam locomotive still continues to draw long trains of coal--with 20 per cent. of it destined for his fire-box and the fire-boxes of his fellows. And this in an era which we have been pleased to call the age of electricity! No matter from what angle one may view them, the possibilities of a far wider extension of electric motive-power on our railroads are fascinating indeed. Nor are they in this day and age to be regarded as particularly radical or revolutionary, or new and untried. Remember all the while, if you will, that the first important electrification of a section of standard steam railroad in this country--the Mount Royal tunnel section of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad through the heart of Baltimore--was nearly thirty years ago. Since that day a good many other like experiments, large and small, have followed in its wake. Other lands have both followed and preceded us. These other lands are not asleep to-day. Despite the terribly crippled condition of Europe to-day, elaborate plans are being made over there--particularly in France, in Switzerland, and in Great Britain, and even in Spain and in Italy. The British plans are still quite vague. The French are more definite. It is now planned to electrify at least 6000 miles of the 26,500 miles of French railway; a single system, the Paris-Orleans, has made definite preparations for bringing this power, the most of it water-generated, to more than half of its mileage, about 3250 miles all-told. In Switzerland work is already rapidly under way for transforming the entire Federal system of railways, approximately 1900 miles, from steam to electric power. It is to be a huge job, the cost of which is roughly estimated at $200,000,000. Little Switzerland shows great pluck in even tackling it. But when you ask the managers of their railways why they are undertaking it they shrug their shoulders and smile and reply: "Think of the economies that it will bring us."