47) Here’s a typical example of what I mean – one of the fast electric trains that maintain a regular service between London and Portsmouth. They are un-named and don’t normally catch the public eye, but every day, regularly as clockwork, one leaves Waterloo each hour for the journey t6 Portsmouth, providing the passenger with one of the pleasantest short trips it is possible to take by train in Britain. Current for the electric motors which drive the train is picked up from the conductor rail through a metal collector shoe which slides along it. The conductor rail is laid outside the running rails.