The Metropolitan Railway will be electrified in a very similar manner to the District Railway, the system being the same, _i.e._ alternating three-phase, converted at sub-stations into continuous current. Access to the platforms will be by short staircases, and not by lifts. It is said that when steam is abolished the appearance of the stations may possibly be improved, but the advertisements are too important a source of revenue to be removed, and, as the Company says, “they act as a relief to the bare walls, and their withdrawal would answer no good”! An effort will be made to cleanse the tunnels, but it has not yet been decided what method will be adopted. There exist an abundance of open spaces, ventilating-shafts, and holes, and the frequent passing of trains in contrary directions will necessarily keep the air in motion, and thus, as in the District, the problem of ventilation will solve itself. The cars will be of the corridor type, seven to a full train, each end car and the middle one having a motor, and if the contingencies of the traffic do not require a large train, it will thus be possible to divide it and run it in two parts. The seating will be both transverse and longitudinal, and considerably over four hundred passengers it is said can be accommodated in each full train. As to day and night services, their frequency, the fares, and the distinction of classes, nothing has yet been decided. About a mile from Wembly, where “Watkins’ Folly,” as it is locally called--at one time aspiring, like Babel’s, to “reach unto heaven”--shows gauntly against the skyline its first stage of only 150 feet, is Neasden, where, on land belonging to the Metropolitan Railway, is being erected its power house (the most extensive in the kingdom owned by a single railway company), capable of producing some 14,000 kilowatts. Water in abundance will be obtained by means of artesian wells now being bored in the chalk; and coal can be readily supplied. The current will be applied to cars, as on the District, by a conductor-rail placed in the near side of the permanent way, with a return fixed in the centre of the running track. By the end of 1903 it is hoped that the work will be sufficiently advanced for some trains to be run by electricity. Finally, as the Metropolitan’s engineer-in-chief remarks, there will be no marked novelties, but “the very conversion from steam to electric traction will prove a great novelty and an attraction. New cars of the latest type will be introduced, the stations will be bright and cheerful, the atmosphere pure; travel will be undertaken with a greater degree of comfort, and freedom from disagreeable odours. In short, nothing that can reasonably be expected to be performed in the interests of the public will be left undone.” AMERICAN CAPITAL