Life — December 9, 1886 — page 24: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

372 THE RAILWAYS OF THE FUTURE. FIRST examine the accompanying map, then fancy yourself under- going a Civil Service examination in A. D. 1986. How would you answer these questions ? (a) If a cross-eyed engineer should take the “Woodpile Limited” out of the Grand Central Depot at 9.13 A. M., Monday, where | would he and his train be Wednesday, at 11.32 P. M. ? (2) By what route would you ship a charlotte russe to Waukesha, ‘Wis., or Minneapolis, Minn. ‘The railways of 1986 will cover so much of the land that when the absent-minded servant is ‘‘in the garden a hanging up the clothes” she will frequently suspend her wash from the smoke-stack of the “Chicago Special ;” and so little of the back yard will remain private property that the chickens will be obliged to go to roost on the cow- catcher of the ‘Duluth Accommodation.” The man who owns a piece of private property will enclose it with a high fence, and admit the | public to view the curiosity at twenty-five cents a head, 200,000,000 of our best citizens will be obliged to do duty at the multitudinous crossings, flagging trains; while the balance of our population, in- cluding the President of the United States, will manipulate the | switches, As for the noise attending the running of so many trains—well, it is supposed that, at that time, the approaching ocean tourist will hear the American continent twenty-seven hours before he sees it. People will retire to boiler foundries for a few moments of old-fashioned quiet. The trains will necessarily be run on such close connections that the untimely stopping of one will so disconcert the entire system as to cause a series of collisions extending north to the great lakes, south to the Gulf, and west to the Pacific. schedule time, else the whole system will get so mixed that it will take eleven months to unravel the knot after each collision. Cow-catchers will be placed on the séde of the train for protection at crossings, and all switchmen becoming abnormally, chronically and constitutionally cross-eyed will be pensioned and retired to the Cross- Eyed Old Men’s Home. In the event of war with a foreign power, the entire service— “* specials,” “locals,” ‘ limiteds,” “lightnings,” “ fast mails,” “‘ ways,” “throughs,” ‘ emigrants,” “accommodations,” and other trains will be kept running continuously, night as well as day, which will prevent the enemy from even getting a foothold on this continent. We will thus have_a navy on land, if we cannot have one on the water. In Trains will be obliged to run on | @--Larce Cities @ --Smact Towns, A RAILROAD MAP OF THE UNITED STATES—A. D. 1986, (All Trunk Lines), Where are you going, and how do you intend to get there? case the enemy should actually succeed in landing, all the smoking cars will be placed on the division covering the invaded territory. These cars will be filled with our La Buzzard cigar smokers, and when the trains advance the enemy will take to their boats. It will be noticed that our map does not show any trace of the mountain ranges of to-day. Our American railways are waging a war with these mountains, and the tunnels, cuts and gradings of the next hundred years will reduce this land to a level. That's all there is about it. The extra soil can be dumped into the canal. Wallace Peck. comicbooks.com