Here a few minutes are taken up in pointing the car accurately
for Galway. Great caution is necessary, and very delicate and
beautiful instruments are employed. When all are on board again
and ready for the supermarine voyage, the engineer loads up with
a much more powerful charge than before. He prepares at the start
for a speed of a mile in three seconds, then, when fairly out
over the sea, a stronger electric current is applied to the huge
charge, and a speed of a mile, or even more, a second is obtained.
This fearful velocity is not permitted overland, for fear of
collisions, as car routes cross each other. But no routes cross
over the sea between St. John's and Galway, nor is the Galway car
allowed to leave till the St. John's car has arrived, and vice
versa, therefore the highest speed attainable is permitted. Before
land again looms in view, speed is much slackened, and now the
engineer requires all his experience and his utmost skill. The
high winds across the ocean may have caused his car to deviate
slightly from its path, so as soon as land appears the deviation
has to be corrected, and only two or three seconds remain in which
to correct it. However, the engineer is equal to his task, and
the car is now in the same manner as before, brought to a stand
in Galway at 6 minutes to 8, just 30 minutes out from St. John's
and 54 from Halifax. At 8 o'clock Dublin is reached, next comes
Holyhead, and then London at 8.20. Here passengers for the South
of Europe change cars. As the car for the South does not start
till 8.30, there is time for a hasty glance at the enormous
central depot just arrived at--one of the wonders of the world.
Cars are coming in every minute punctually on time from all parts
of the country and the world. The arrival slide is here shaped
like the inside or concavity of a shallow cone, two miles in
diameter, with the edge rather more than 150 feet from the ground.