"That is fine! I was afraid you might not rest very well. As I observed last night, a sleeping car is not all that it might be. The day will come when it will have to be improved. However, since it gets us to New York safely and economizes hours of day travel, it is a blessing for which we should be grateful." As he spoke he moved into the aisle and helped the boy down from his perch; they then sought out a distant seat where they dropped down and watched the rapidly passing landscape. "I have been thinking, as I was dressing, of the story you told me last night about our American railroads," said the lad. "It surprised me a good deal to hear that the South took the lead over the North in the introduction of the steam locomotive." Mr. Tolman smiled into the eager face. "While it is true that South Carolina took the initiative in railroading for a short time the South did not remain long in the ascendency," he answered, "for the third steam locomotive put into actual passenger service was built at Albany. This city, because of its geographical position, was a great stagecoach center, having lines that radiated from it into the interior in almost every direction. And not only was it an important coaching rendezvous but as it was also a leading commercial tributary of New York the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad had built a short track between Albany and Schenectady and supplied it with cars propelled by horse power. Now in 1831 the company decided to transform this road into a steam railroad and to this end ordered a steam locomotive called the 'DeWitt Clinton' to be constructed at West Point with the aim of demonstrating to the northern States the advantages of steam transportation. You can imagine the excitement this announcement caused. Think, if you had never seen a steam engine, how eager you would be to behold the wonder. These olden time New Yorkers felt precisely the same way. Although the route was only sixteen miles long the innovation was such a novel and tremendous one that all along the way crowds of spectators assembled to watch the passing of the magic train. At the starting point near the Hudson there was a dense throng of curious onlookers who gathered to see for the first time in all their lives the steam locomotive and its brigade of coaches,--for in those days people never spoke of a train of cars; a group of railroad carriages was always known as a brigade, and the term _coach_ was, and in many cases still is applied to the cars. This train that created so much interest was practically like Stephenson's English trains, being made up of a small locomotive, a tender, and two carriages constructed by fastening stagecoach bodies on top of railroad trucks. Stout iron chains held these vehicles together--a primitive, and as it subsequently proved, a very impractical method of coupling." "It must have been a funny enough train!" Steve exclaimed.