Atlanta's downtown smoke, like Chicago's, comes in large
part from railroads piercing the heart of the city. Where downtown
business streets cross the railroad tracks, the latter are depressed,
the highways passing above on steel bridges resembling the bridges over
the Chicago River. The railroad's right of way is, furthermore, just
about as wide as the Chicago River, and rows of smoke-stained brick
buildings turn their backs upon it, precisely as similar buildings turn
theirs upon Chicago's busy, narrow stream. I wonder if all travelers,
familiar with Chicago, are so persistently reminded of that portion of
the city which is near the river, as I was by that portion of Atlanta
abutting on the tracks by which the Seaboard Air Line enters the city.

Generally speaking, railroads in the South have not been so prosperous
as leading roads in the North, and with the exception of the most
important through trains, their passenger equipment is, therefore, not
so good. The Seaboard Air Line, however, runs an all-steel train between
Atlanta and Birmingham which, in point of equipment, may be compared
with the best limited trains anywhere. The last car in this train,
instead of being part sleeping car and part observation car, is a
combination dining and observation car--a very pleasant arrangement, for
men are allowed to smoke in the observation end after dinner. This is,
to my mind, an improvement over the practice of most railroads, which
obliges men who wish to smoke to leave the ladies with whom they may be
traveling. All Seaboard dining cars offer, aside from regular a la carte
service, a sixty-cent dinner known as the "Blue Plate Special." This
dinner has many advantages over the usual dining-car repast. In the
first place, though it does not comprise bread and butter, coffee or
tea, or dessert, it provides an ample supply of meat and vegetables at a
moderate price. In the second place, though served at a fixed price, it
bears no resemblance to the old-style dining car table d'hote, but, upon
the contrary, looks and tastes like food. The food, furthermore, instead
of representing a great variety of viands served in microscopic helpings
on innumerable platters and "side dishes," comes on one great plate,
with recesses for vegetables. The "Blue Plate Special" furnishes, in
short, the chief items in a "good home meal."

This is, perhaps, as convenient a place as any in which to speak of
certain points concerning various railr