Alfred Warwick Gattie. "Early Kearneyite"

The Society of Engineers lecture by Elfric
Comments by Alfred Warwick Gattie. (Chairman of the New Transport Co Ltd)
From the Kearney Files.

Said he would at once nail his colours to the mast : he was a confirmed "Kearneyite".The Kearney tube system means the acceleration of a train at starting by means of gravity, then the economic use of velocity thus cheaply acquired and finally the use of gravity as a means of retardation in bringing the train to a standstill without any of the expensive concomitants of friction.
These advantages must be fully apparent to any engineer. He would like to translate in a few words what Mr. Kearney's system meant in terms of money, which, again, meant terms of energy. There were some millions of men and women coming into and going out of London every day. If those people could be saved a quarter of an hour on their journey it would come to about four million man - hours per day. And if a man - hour were priced the same as that for which one could hire a donkey, say, 9d., a very reasonable daily sum of money would be the result. If it were seen that this was the accomplishment of such a system, his object in addressing these few words to the meeting would have been achieved. He had carefully examined everything which Mr. Kearney had been kind enough to put before him and he had never found that gentleman guilty of an exaggeration or an inaccuracy. Indeed, there was no occasion for it. He had stated everything in the most straightforward way : he had placed his cards on the table, and he, the speaker, had the greatest confidence in him. If things should come his(Mr. Gattie's) way before they came Mr. Kearney's, that gentleman would not be very long before he followed him.