The railroads of the West were, for a long time, seemingly barred from establishing "excess-speed-for-excess-fare" trains by physical limitations which seemed to make long-distance high-speed trains impracticable. For you must remember that in the case of the New York-Chicago excess-fare trains the extra charge is based exactly on shortened time. For each hour saved from the fixed minimum of twenty-eight hours for standard lines between the two cities one dollar is added to the standard fare. So it is that the Twentieth Century Limited and its counterpart on the Pennsylvania, each making the run in twenty hours, add eight dollars to the regular fare of $21.10. But, if these trains are delayed--for any cause whatsoever--they will pay back one dollar for each hour of the delay, until the standard minimum fare is again reached. Yet the western railroads have taken hold of the situation with a bold hand. "We shall put a winter train from Chicago to Los Angeles and San Francisco that will be _de luxe_ in every sense of the word," said the Santa Fé four or five winters ago. "We shall have the very best of train comforts--library, barber shop, ladies' maids, compartments a-plenty--and we shall charge twenty-five dollars excess fare for the use of this train." Railroad men around Chicago received this news with astonishment. "You don't mean to say," they gasped, "that you are going to guarantee to cut twenty-five hours off the running time between Chicago and the Pacific coast?" "We are going to run the new train through in five hours less time than our fastest train today." "Five dollars an hour! That's going some!" whistled railroad Chicago. "Five dollars an hour--nothing!" replied the Santa Fé. "We are going to charge for luxury--not for speed. We are going to charge folks eighty-five dollars for the ride between Chicago and San Francisco instead of the standard price of sixty dollars; and we are going to have them standing in line for the privilege of doing it! They will come home and boast of having ridden on that train just as folks come home from across the Atlantic and boast of the great hotels that have housed them in Europe. You never hear a man brag of having ridden in a tourist-sleeper." The Santa Fé was right. It gauged human nature successfully. Its _de luxe_ train at twenty-five dollars excess fare has become a weekly feature between Chicago and the Pacific coast the entire winter long. Its chief rival has also installed an excess-fare train--in connection with its feeding lines, the North Western and the Southern Pacific. This train runs daily the year round and so charges but ten dollars excess fare between Chicago and San Francisco. But in the case of neither of these trains do they refund fare-excess in case of delay. They feel that the two big passenger roads of the East made a distinct mistake when they established that basic principle.