are already doomed on earth, already threatened with that
obsolescence that will endear them to the Ruskins of to-morrow, but
a thin spider's web of inconspicuous special routes will cover the
land of the world, pierce the mountain masses and tunnel under the
seas. These may be double railways or monorails or what not--we are
no engineers to judge between such devices--but by means of them the
Utopian will travel about the earth from one chief point to another
at a speed of two or three hundred miles or more an hour. That
will abolish the greater distances.... One figures these main
communications as something after the manner of corridor trains,
smooth-running and roomy, open from end to end, with cars in which
one may sit and read, cars in which one may take refreshment, cars
into which the news of the day comes printing itself from the wires
beside the track; cars in which one may have privacy and sleep if
one is so disposed, bath-room cars, library cars; a train as
comfortable as a good club. There will be no distinctions of class
in such a train, because in a civilised world there would be no
offence between one kind of man and another, and for the good of the
whole world such travelling will be as cheap as it can be, and well
within the reach of any but the almost criminally poor.

Such great tramways as this will be used when the Utopians wish to
travel fast and far; thereby you will glide all over the land
surface of the planet; and feeding them and distributing from them,
innumerable minor systems, clean little electric tramways I picture
them, will spread out over the land in finer reticulations, growing
close and dense in the urban regions and thinning as the population
thins. And running beside these lighter railways, and spreading
beyond their range, will be the smooth minor high roads such as this
one we now approach, upon which independent vehicles, motor cars,