We are all familiar by this time with the other ten surface stations of the Twopenny Tube (at the Post Office, Marble Arch, etc.). They are nearly all alike, and look as if they were waiting for a substantial and lofty building to be erected upon them, and have little claim to architectural beauty. The platforms, necessarily rather contracted in area, are clean and bright, owing to the extensive use of opalite tiling and glazed bricks, ever spotless, and practically indestructible. Each train consists of six eight-wheeled bogie-cars, 45½ feet long, with well-upholstered seats, arranged longitudinally and crosswise, for forty-eight passengers. The lighting is effected by means of eight sixteen-candle-power incandescent lamps, supplemented by small shaded electric lights, excellent for reading by. The windows, of course, do not open, but practicable ventilating louvres are arranged above them. Entrance is obtained at each end of the car, and the telescopic gates are cleverly and expeditiously manipulated by the attendants. Straps are placed along rods on each side of the roof to aid passengers in traversing the cars, and above the seats are racks for parcels, etc. The electric locomotives[4] are curious in shape, with the driver’s cabin in the middle, and a backward and forward slope for the apparatus looking like gigantic coal-scuttles back to back. They have eight wheels, and are fitted with motors, one for each axle. The current is collected from a central third rail by means of two cast-iron shoes which rub along it, and is led through an automatic circuit-breaker and switched to the controller in the driver’s cabin, thence to the motors, returning to the track rails through the wheels. The total weight of a locomotive is about forty-four tons, and the average speed is about fourteen miles an hour, the running time from the Bank to the western terminus being twenty-four minutes. At Shepherd’s Bush--once, as its name implies, a rural suburban hamlet, suggestive of pastoral pursuits, flocks of sheep and lambs, washings and shearings of fleeces--is the chief power station of the Central, sub-stations being situated at the General Post Office, Marble Arch, and Notting Hill Gate. The premises cover sixty-eight acres, with plenty of room for locomotive and car sheds, shunting tracks, boiler and engine houses, the latter most impressive from the size of their six Corliss compound horizontal engines, each rated at 1,300 horse-power, though, as in so much American machinery, the somewhat rough exterior detracts from the appearance, especially in the eyes of British engineers, accustomed not only to internal mechanical perfection--as in the Central’s engines--but to nicety of finish throughout. These giants are coupled direct to Thomson-Houston dynamos, with the capacity, if required, of 5,100 kilowatts, or 6,800 indicated horse-power.