INTERURBAN AND CROSS COUNTRY WORK. 201 
tion—the necessary result, however, of its manner of 
growth. Some of the component systems, of course, are 
beautifully designed. 
Most existing roads of the interurban class have in 
similar fashion been the result of extensions, but recently 
there has been a tendency toward systems intended delib- 
erately for interurban work, and designed with this in 
view. Such is the system about Cleveland, O., described 
in a former chapter, the recently opened line between Los 
Angeles and Santa Monica, Cal., and divers others. These 
lines are rapidly increasing in numbers and form the con- 
necting link between street railways with their suburban 
extensions on the one hand, and electric systems replacing 
steam railroads on the other. 
The distinction between these classes is somewhat ar- 
tificial, but none the less real. We shall consider only 
those roads that are prepared to operate capacious trains 
at speeds of thirty miles per hour and upwards as really 
entering upon the functions of ordinary railroads. The 
strictly interurban roads have a function of their own, and 
a most important one, in linking together urban systems 
and opening up direct service between points previously 
connected very indirectly. 
A glance at Fig. 106 will show that the latter function 
is even now very imperfectly fulfilled. There are still 
left great areas in which there is no intercommunication 
except by paying a double tariff into and out of one of the 
larger cities. 
The cross country roads, as yet but little used in 
this country are destined to play a very important part in the 
development of our country. They should serve as feeders 
both for steam roads and interurban electric roads, form- 
ing the capillaries, as it were, of the industrial circulation. 
They are naturally allied to interurban systems, but owing 
to the necessity for cheap constructlon and the compara- 
tive unimportance of high speed, must be separated from 
them in engineering details and particularly in equipment. 
The interurban road proper differs from the ordinary