The traditional railroad franchise is bulk commodities that are too heavy to be carried cost-effectively by truck, coal, potash, and grain, for example.
Thus, you cannot appreciate a novel by reading it passively (indeed, as we have remarked, you must read it passionately) any more than you can understand a philosophical book that way.
This delay is very important, because if the atria and ventricles contracted at the same time, they would be pushing against each other and blood would not be able to move through the heart in a coordinated way.