The result was that the United States, despite the high wages paid here, led the world in bicycle making and flooded all countries with this utilitarian article.
Our great locomotive factories had developed on similar lines.

Europeans had always marveled that Americans could build these costly articles so cheaply that they could undersell European makers.

When they obtained a glimpse of an American locomotive factory, the reason became plain.

In Europe each locomotive was a separate problem; no two, even in the same shop, were exactly alike.

But here locomotives are built in parts, all duplicates of one another; the parts are then sent by machinery to assembling rooms and rapidly put together.