Overmod Was wird uns die Zukunft Neues bringen?
Was wird uns die Zukunft Neues bringen?
Ein Traum vom Fliegen oder einen endlos Abgrund stürzen?
The Boynton Bicycle Railway was another underrated project proposed in the late 1890s, just like the Weems Electric Railway. Reminds me of my fantasy when I was a child, I wanted to convert the roller coaster into public transport which can serve folks who living on the small hill and decrease travel time by 75%. But of course, as a little child, I didn't take noise and ride quality into account! Can be solved though.....
Günter Radtke's works are amazing, I love the styling of his future. Not the future of the past I am living in. Am I the only one here stuck in Durrenmatt's tunnel? Please rewrite the ending for Durrenmatt so that I can escape from this mortal coil!
Jones 3D Modeling Club https://www.youtube.com/Jones3DModelingClub
Germans love their automobiles too but still use the ICE despite the many problems that Deutsche Bahn AG faces. Recent reports indicate DB trains operate some 70% on time. Many are only several minutes off schedule and others...well...
Planet Earth will be forced to Go Green but not like the fanatics demand today which is to revert to the wonderful world of cavemen who hit women over the head with a club and drag them back to their own private hole in the side of a cliff. The Flintstones had the most efficent automobile ever created by man: Footpower!
The Diesel BS today is Fake News too and if y'all think that the Greenpiece morons all walk or ride bicycles take another look.
Had America invested in HSR after WWII people would have used it to make trips between the Big Apple and the Windy City especially when Old Man Winter has closed all the highways as well as shut down airspace. It's called insurance and is there when needed the most.
Sure beats wasting billions of $$$, thus helping increase the national debt to finance senseless wars, not to mention counting the loss of fellow Americans on foreign soil, does it not?
Jones1945
Was wird uns die Zukunft Neues bringen? (Aber morgen wird es vielleicht schon NICHT Wirklichkeit...)
The Boynton Bicycle Railway meets the Weems 150mph telpher in Durrenmatt's tunnel! With 2 decks just like the world-record-holding HSR train!
Firelock76 ...I had a French aquaintance who flew on the Concorde once, and once only, just to say he did it. He didn't like it at all, said an Air France 747 was a much nicer ride than the Concorde ever could have been.
...I had a French aquaintance who flew on the Concorde once, and once only, just to say he did it. He didn't like it at all, said an Air France 747 was a much nicer ride than the Concorde ever could have been.
Very true, Firelock76. I understand that different countries have a different pace of living. If folks in the States enjoy what they are having and don't have the motivation to change their travel habit, they have the freedom to choose to preserve the status quo. From my understanding, it won't be an easy task to build a HSR which will go through different states under the framework of US's political system. But if there is strong demands, enough people willing to speak out, and the HSR itself is in the line of US's national interests, I believe it will happen. : )
The cabin of Concorde was really like a crowded bus, I can understand why your friend didn't enjoy the ride. SST is probably one of the few modern things which I found fascinating. I used to imagine a fantasy ultra high-speed train using the body of Boeing 2707! If the concept of Elon Musk's Hyperloop will become a fact, I wish it will look as awesome as those SST projects. : )
http://klausbuergle.de/roemer_poster1.htm
MidlandMike A NY-Chicago "Air Line" as straight as the map showed needed to be electric, as the entire line thru western NJ, PA, and eastern OH would have to have been in tunnels to keep the grades under 1%.
A NY-Chicago "Air Line" as straight as the map showed needed to be electric, as the entire line thru western NJ, PA, and eastern OH would have to have been in tunnels to keep the grades under 1%.
Thank you very much, MidlandMike. That would increase the construction cost for sure. Building a tunnel is never an easy task, people will never know what kind of surprise they would find deep inside the mountain.
Trinity, I hear what you're saying, but Mr. Jones is correct, it all comes down to demand. If enough Americans wanted hi-speed rail, really wanted it, and were organized enough and vocal enough to demand it, we'd have it. But that's just not the case.
It's been said "This is America, we love our cars and hate everything else!" Not 100% true of course, not by a long shot, but not too far off the mark either.
My own theory is when the Boomers get too old to drive, and form a powerful voting block, then you might see some real action on truly reliable and comfortable mass transit, in addition to hi-speed (or high-er speed) trains. But not before.
Mr. Jones, I remember the SST controversy very well, I was in high school at the time, and the opposition was intense and quite honestly bordered on the ridiculous. But in the end it worked out all right. Boeing's 747's and 737's turned out to be bigger money makers than the SST ever would have been.
I had a French aquaintance who flew on the Concorde once, and once only, just to say he did it. He didn't like it at all, said an Air France 747 was a much nicer ride than the Concorde ever could have been.
Trinity River Bottoms Boomer The United States should have led the rest of the world in the construction of high-speed rail. The gentleman who proposed and commenced to build the Chicago-New York Electric Air Line Railroad at the beginning of the 20th Century was on the right track.
The United States should have led the rest of the world in the construction of high-speed rail. The gentleman who proposed and commenced to build the Chicago-New York Electric Air Line Railroad at the beginning of the 20th Century was on the right track.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/CNY_map.png
Source: https://chicagology.com/transportation/airlinerailroad/
The Chicago-New York Electric Air Line Railroad! The straight line on the map made me drooling. A very ambitious plan from the 1900s I am sure, but it is hard to determine if it is commercially practical or not without reading the feasibility assessment of this project. Ten hours from NY to Chi-town, only Ten dollars. This project sound very promising but it also looked like something you can only find in the Utopia.
It was proposed in 1906. Unlike the Weems Electric Railway which was proposed a few years earlier, it used "normal" size trolley and supposed to be a standard gauge railway. If a 252-mile cost $5.5 million in 1893, it is not hard to estimate the cost to build a 740+ mile railway with "grades not exceeding 1%, no grade crossings", a straight route went through all geographical obstacles, privately owned land and properties. But of course, it worth the investment if a generous return is guaranteed (could they?).
The only one larger city "close" to the track was Cleveland, Ohio which had a population of 560,000 in the 1900s. The railroad probably couldn't provide freight service if lightweight rail is used or passenger trains frequency would be needed to decrease for freight trains. Vested interests and rivals on the Northeast passenger trains market probably wouldn't let such system operate without troubles; how to protect a 700 miles long high-speed railroad system under the shadow of the Law of the Jungle would have been a harsh challenge. I think a project in such scale better be planned and coordinated by the government instead of a small private company with limited resource, experience, and knowledge of the railroad industry.
Anyway, I love this idea. If it happened in the 1930s, built by a consortium of PRR, NYC, GE, Baldwin and Westinghouse and pushed by the US government. It would have been the world's best HSR.
Trinity River Bottoms Boomer While Third World countries and Banana Republics are busy planning for the future of their citizens with modern high-speed rail networks, the only thing the U.S.A. can show for itself in Century 21, is the North East Corridor and a rundown wooden axle passenger rail carrier better known as Amtrak.
While Third World countries and Banana Republics are busy planning for the future of their citizens with modern high-speed rail networks, the only thing the U.S.A. can show for itself in Century 21, is the North East Corridor and a rundown wooden axle passenger rail carrier better known as Amtrak.
I can understand that feeling. But keep in mind that when the Japanese were developing the first generation Shinkansen, which was capable of reaching 130mph, the US government and engineers in the States were busy developing something which would have been changed the whole world --- Boeing 2707! A supersonic transport project which can hit Mach 2.7 or 1,800 miles per hour, 14 times faster than the Shinkansen! If (well...) the Sonic boom issue was solved, the travel time from NYC to Chi-town would have been 40mins ( Other examples: NYC to LA: 80mins; Chicago to London: 136mins; NYC to Tokyo / Washington DC to Beijing / Toronto to Hong Kong: less than 4 hours! )
Source: http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2014/01/american-supersonic-airliners-race-for.html
But it didn't happen.
When the SST project was being dropped, many GG1 built in the 1940s were still serving the people. Building more HSR routes in the States or not, is entirely the choice of the US people.
The United States should have led the rest of the world in the construction of high speed rail. The gentleman who proposed and commenced to build the Chicago-New York Electric Air Line Railroad at the beginning of the 20th Century was on the right track.
While Third World countries and Banana Republics are busy planning for the future of their citizens with modern high speed rail networks, the only thing the U.S.A. can show for itself in Century 21, is the North East Corridor and a run down wooden axle passenger rail carrier better known as Amtrak.
Dinner in the diner: Nothing beats having to get up in the middle of the night to catch a day old stale sandwich on the fly at some run down depot in the Carolinas while riding Amtrak's tarnished stainless steel Silver Star from New York to Florida!
All aboard?
Penny Trains - Haha, I can understand the anger of Godzilla(ゴジラ), it probably love trains but it is too big to buy a train ticket. A Love-hate situation! Speaking of Godzilla, it reminds me of the incident of Japan Earthquake & Tsunami of 2011 ,and the "King Kong" movie of 1976. I can't remember how many time I rewatched that movie (Another one is "The Poseidon Adventure" of 1972!) I think many forums member still remember this NYC Subway scene:
Firelock76 -- Maybe they can only get along in the railroad modeling world where Godzilla is "frozen" in the plastic form : ) but if you replace the Godzilla with a fluffy cat, the result will be the same. I still remember in the 1980s when people still bought N scale railroad model of Japan or Europe for their child as a present. Almost every department store in my city still had the toy department with a rather large section selling trains toys and expensive models except brass trains.
In the Japanese department store, they displayed almost all N scale model trainset in the shop, always with a small layout in the toy department to lure the children. but I prefer the Europen and UK stream trains since I was a child. But it is hard to not admit that Kato's products, just like many other Japan brand toys, were very well detailed. Yes, even their toys.
erikem -- Very true! In the blink of an eye, 40 years gone like the wind together with so many people and things; like some of my good friends and global cultures! You are right that the debut of the Shinkansen happened in 1964, just about four years before the merge of PRR and NYCRR.
BaltACD -- Exactly! And the Shinkansen itself actually inspired many people in the railroad industry, including some very important political figures like Deng Xiaoping from Communist China (Yes, when *some people still believe in the Marxism), but I am not going to digress!
Miningman -- The craftsmanship and the quality of products from Japan and Germany really earned their reputation during the past 70 years.
I always wonder, what would happen if someone places a PRR T1 on the Shinkansen for a test run...
erikem-- No kidding! Stunning isn't it. Hard to believe it's old.
Have the N scale Kato bullet trains made in the 80's, green and blue versions and it still looks very contemporary... and like the real one, it is flawless, has zipped around trouble free for 30 years. Never uncouples, never derails, defines reliability.
And it is still serving it's economic purpose 54 years later.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
The scary thing about this thread is that it actually belongs in the Classic Trains forum...
And I'm old enough to remember the debut of the Shinkansen back in '64.
It's sad when two Japanese icons just can't get along...
A little mood music?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDeU42u2s2Y
Reminds me, I was reading the guidelines for the "Great Scale Model Train Show" held in Timonium MD several years ago. There was a reminder to exhibitors that this was a train and railroad related item show. No toys, dolls, or anything else not railroad related was permitted, with one exception.
If you were modeling Japanese railroads, especially with Kato or Shinohara products, it was OK to include Godzilla on the layout!
I don't think he's a fan either....
They also come in handy if you have a spare bed and a hankering to run trains when you're 10,000 miles from home.
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
This video was uploaded a few days ago. A nice and brief review of the history of the Shinkansen with decent 3D rendering. The word "Envy" probably triggered some people but I think It is just a trick of "content marketing".
When Streamliners were dying in the States, passenger service came back to the main stage in the Far East. I am never a big fan of the Shinkansen, but the success of it is really compelling; reminds me of those self-proclaimed "train of the future" and their fate.
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