Two improvements adopted by the Board, chiefly, I believe, on my recommendation, are now recognised as established institutions; and by their extension to other lines, and by increase in the scope of their operation, have obtained an importance far beyond any expectation that I could then have formed. These are excursion-trains and express-trains. Our first excursion-train ran on Sundays only. After a time the train was run on Mondays also. The earliest express-train, intended to accommodate residents in Brighton whose occupation was in London, started from the first at its present hour, though of necessity it occupied more time in the trip; as no engine of the day was able to run fifty miles without stopping to take in water, while no means had yet been devised for supplying it to an engine in motion. The train, however, travelled at the rate of thirty-four miles per hour, including a halt at Redhill, no small achievement at that time. Every one must have remarked how soon the gratification of one desire gives birth to another--how soon we complain of imperfection in what would have been regarded but a few years earlier as unattainable perfection. I happened one day to travel in an ordinary carriage, and, not being known to its other occupants, heard some free remarks on the management of the line, to which I listened for my own edification. Somewhat to my disappointment, I found the late acceleration complained of as insufficient, one of the passengers exclaiming, "This is a slow-coach!--a very slow coach!" Imprudently I asked, "Are you aware, Sir, that the whole distance from London to Brighton is accomplished in an hour and a-half?" "Oh!" was the glib reply, "if they can do it in an hour and a-half, they can just as well do it in an hour!"[28] By one expedient I sought to combine advantage to my present service with benefit to my former one. Perceiving that residence at Brighton, and therefore custom to the railway, would be increased by every addition to postal facilities between that town and the metropolis, I induced the directors to make an offer to the Post Office for the conveyance of a mail by every train without any additional expense to that department. The result of this offer, which was kept for some time under consideration at the Post Office, will presently appear.