Motor bath-chairs, to hold two people, and propelled by electricity, will be accomplished facts at the World’s Fair, St. Louis, next year. I have now to acknowledge, with thanks, the assistance of Sir William H. Preece, who kindly read through the proof-sheets of this volume just before he fell seriously ill in August, and of his son, Mr. Llewellyn Preece, who has written the Introduction, and I now leave “Tube, Train, Tram, and Car” to receive the verdict of those who travel. ARTHUR H. BEAVAN _September, 1903._ INTRODUCTION BY LLEWELLYN PREECE, M.I.E.E. The object of this book is to give the public a general idea as to the progress now being made in the application of electricity for transport purposes, and it was intended that Sir William Preece should write the introduction and correct the author so far as any technical misstatements were concerned. Unhappily, Sir William Preece has fallen victim to a very severe illness, which entirely incapacitates him from any work, and will prevent him from doing anything for some months to come. Just before his illness, however, he had gone through the proofs and made certain corrections, all of which, the author tells me, have been accepted, but owing to the great delay in the publication of this book which has already been incurred, and to the impossibility of discussing these matters with my father, I have not been able to check the proofs since the alterations were made. The advances which, within the last few years, have been made in the application of electricity for the purpose of transportation are shown very clearly in this book, and if the author has made one or two flights on the wings of fancy regarding the future which may be somewhat startling to the reader, it must be remembered that if many things which are of everyday occurrence had been suggested to any of us fifty years ago, and if we had been told that it would be possible to travel at the rate of a hundred miles an hour, we should have been somewhat inclined to laugh. As the reader will learn, such travelling is to be very shortly a fact. At the same time I do not believe that it will be so much with the high-speed work as with the tramway and light railway work that electricity will be of the greatest service to the public in the future. I look forward to the time when there will be a network of light railways surrounding every town in the kingdom, enabling the population to spread itself out once again in the country. Central power stations distributing electric current over a radius of fifteen or twenty miles will enable these railways to work at very low cost, and therefore carry passengers considerable distances at low fares.