Looks like this train, plus two others are still going strong at the Portland Zoo.

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Portland’s Zoo Railway

HAPPY tots and smiling adults ride around the new $3,859,000 Portland, Ore., zoo on America’s latest railway—the Portland Zoo Railroad Co. The rocket-styled, Diesel-powered Zooliner hauls three gleaming Skydome coaches and a luxurious club car which tote 99 adults or 132 kids. The pike is headed by famed Pacific Northwest author and historian, Stewart H. Holbrook, Chairman of the Board, and John H. Jones, President. All aboard!

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RAILROADS IN THE SKY

Monorails promise swift and economical transportation for congested cities.

By Archie Robertson

HERE’S a brand-new way of travel for American commuters—the overhead, suspended train. In a monorail coach, light and roomy as a luxurious airliner and faster than a surface train, you will skim along above the crowded downtown streets, looking with thankfulness at your escape from a misery of crawling cars, traffic fumes, honking horns, whistling cops and squealing brakes. Whether you’re just going downtown to shop or commuting to work 50 miles from your home, a monorail will take you where you’re going two or three times as fast as conventional surface transportation. Read the rest of this entry »

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Home for Aged Trolley Cars

THE Seashore Electric Railway of Kennebunkport, Me., is a short stretch of track going nowhere. It’s run by and for people who miss the rattle-clang of the streetcars that have been discarded by Progress in favor of malodorous diesel buses. Fifteen years ago three sentimental Bostonians acquired a 12-bench open trolley; now the New England Electric Railway Historical Society has 300 members and owns rolling stock from points as far away as Denver and Minneapolis.

World’s Largest Vacuum Cleaner Keeps Rail Bed Clean
THE Pennsylvania railroad has perfected the largest vacuum cleaning machine in the world to keep clean the right of way near principal terminals. The powerful machine lifts the stone ballast and foreign matter from along the track into a great cleaning chamber and then redistributes the thoroughly cleaned ballast rock along the rails and ties. It accomplishes the work at the rate of thirty-three feet in three minutes.

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The 400-Mph Passenger Train

It may ride on air cushions rather than on rails, and be driven by jets or even rockets. A number of far-out ideas are competing for serious development. And industry is studying a big new market.

By 1980, unless something drastic is done about it, traffic in the populous northeast corridor of the U.S. between Boston and Washington will have reached an imbalance and impasse of monstrous proportions. Already, superhighways in key metropolitan areas are reaching congestive saturation, though close to $2 billion has been spent on those in the corridor alone since 1945. Read the rest of this entry »

Railroads Run Special Cars For Amateur Photographers

IN ADDITION to their special trains for hikers, bicyclers and other hobby enthusiasts, railroads are now running special observation trains for the accommodation of amateur photographers. Many unusual photos are obtained as the amateurs “shoot” passing trains, entrances and exits from tunnels, sharp curves, etc.
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Over-and-under monorail — a single beam tor two-way taxis

By DAVID SCOTT

Munich, West Germany Starting next year, the people of Hamburg will be able to peer down on the city from a Cabintaxi, a personalized urban conveyor with a difference. It has small electric cars moving in both directions, but on a single elevated track. Cars run both above and below the slim, lofty beam. This unique mass-transit system was designed here by Messerschmidt-Bolkow-Blohm, Germany’s leader in aerospace and a high-technology innovator in other fields. Read the rest of this entry »

Passengers’ Luggage Handled Speedily by Monorail Line

HANDLING package freight to and from ocean-going vessels near Hamburg, Germany, is done in an extremely efficient and satisfactory manner. A unique monorail line carries bundles, trunks, etc., over an extensive tract of land and water to the passenger depot.

The cars are drawn by a gasoline motor along a rail suspension line at a rapid rate of speed. By this means, passengers’ luggage is quickly transported to and from a ship. Steel ribbed girders support the rail.

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The Subway City Grows

Street traffic goes on as usual while gigantic construction project approaches completion many feet below.

by Don Glassman

UNDERGROUND flyers crashing through caves of darkness serve the largest metropolitan population in the world—New York. They carry people to and fro every minute of the year; storm, rain, snow or ice —nothing stops them. Under rivers, streets, skyscrapers, occasionally coming up for a breath of light and air, the trains for the most part run underground where the running is good and the tracks are clear.
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TAKE YOUR CAR WITH YOU ON THE TRAIN

Car-carrying coaches that enable the traveler to make a doorway-to-doorway visit across country may be the answer to the woes of the railroads.

By Frank Tinsley

FOR some years now the famous old “high-ball” sign of America’s railroads has degenerated into an “eight-ball” as far as passenger traffic is concerned. Not that travel has fallen off. Actually, John Q. Public’s well-known itching foot is itchier than ever. It is just that rail service has been dragging its brakeshoes and the traveler has turned to more convenient means of transportation.
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The New 20th Century Limited
JETTING new standards for comfort, beauty and luxury in railroad transportation, the new 20th Century Limited of the New York Central System operates on the fastest schedule—16 hours— ever made in regular service between New York and Chicago, flashing over the rails at speeds up to 80 m.p.h. The Limited consists of 62 cars and 10 streamlined locomotives operated in four sections. Read the rest of this entry »

Talkies to Entertain TRAIN Passengers
TALKIES are soon to be one of the amusements provided for passengers on de luxe trains of leading railroad lines. These “Talkie cars,” designed by William D. Knox, of Birmingham, Mich., are being built for several railroads at a cost of $60,000. They will be decorated like a modern theater, and show latest pictures. Special roller bearings and sound-proof walls will eliminate noise.