Still, to entirely dispense with a great stock of costly locomotives, substituting up-to-date motor engines--with the possibility looming in the future that these, too, in their turn, by the perfecting of storage batteries, may be displaced--to, perhaps, build new cars, or completely remodel existing rolling-stock; to erect new buildings (in many cases) for power stations; to lay down third rails; all this would involve an expenditure that even long-suffering shareholders would rebel against. While, if the steam locomotives were retained to work an accelerated goods service on separate tracks, the widening of bridges, cuttings, and viaducts, the duplication of tunnels on many lines, and the enlargement of stations and sidings, would entail disastrous expenditure. However, the change will doubtless be made gradually, perhaps commencing with the suburban lines, probably as a direct result of the electrification of the Inner Circle Railway, over whose system several main lines have important running powers, and which will then be compelled to abandon steam. Or should some enterprising Socialistic Government come into power with no such trifling matters as Education, Water, Gas, or Tube Bills on its hands, it might by the year 1913, in its anxiety to carry theory into practice, decide to nationalise and electrify our railways wholesale, and at any cost--to the ratepayers! The effect, anyhow, would not be so very startling, for by that time electric travelling would be a matter of course, and disused locomotives of the type so familiar on the “Underground” would be inquired for by relic hunters and presented as curios to every big town. Already the change on the great lines has begun, and it is a significant fact that the North Eastern have decided to adopt electricity on some thirty-seven miles of their system in the neighbourhood of Newcastle-on-Tyne, and a modified form of it in the shape of auto-cars with petrol engines and dynamos generating the current, on the short line between Hartlepool and West Hartlepool. Of electric lines in progress or projected, we have the Manchester and Liverpool, the London and Brighton, the Edinburgh and Glasgow, and others. In London all the big termini will be linked together, and connected with the metropolitan Tube systems, whatever form the latter may ultimately assume. This may have the effect of increasing the crowding and bustling of our big stations, but, on the other hand, a vast number of wealthy people will use motor-cars from “house-to-house,” dispensing altogether with the railway. Trains, more speedily and more economically run, will start more frequently. Goods traffic will be on entirely separate lines, and passenger trains will be able to follow one another in rapid and safe succession.