Unfortunately it would run out of fuel in about a minute.

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Rocket Train Faster than Sound

TOMORROW’S train will be too fast for a timetable. Leave New York at 12 noon for the coast, and you’ll arrive in Los Angeles at the same time, the same day!

How’s that? At 1,000-mph your train will travel as fast as the sun in its apparent motion across the earth from east to west. You’ll pace the sun through every time zone from Eastern Standard to Pacific Time as your wheel-less train glides across the continent in three hours on its graphite-lubricated slippers. It’ll take the sun three hours to race the same distance, and you’ll flash into L.A. in a dead heat—at the same time you started! Read the rest of this entry »

UPSIDE-DOWN TROLLEY
THERE has been much talk and conjecture recently on the possibility of employing a series of elevated monorail systems to help relieve the growing traffic problem that has been plaguing our country’s highways and railroads in the past few years. Well, just in case you might be thinking that a monorail is something brand-new, take a look at these photos that MI has dug up on a suspended trolley that has been in operation in Germany for over 50 years, is still unduplicated.

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Rail Detectives Victors in War on Crime

WHERE are the James boys and the “Bill” Daltons of yesteryear? What has become of the picturesque train robber who, with a gun in each hand and his eyes boring his victims from above a black silk handkerchief, backed away to his pony, Hung the Wells Fargo pouch of gold across his saddle bow, cut loose with a parting volley of bullets, and galloped off across the prairie trails to lead pursuing posses through nights of hard and fruitless riding? Read the rest of this entry »

COMPRESSED AIR DRIVES LOCOMOTIVE 125 MILES AN HOUR

Will steam power give way to compressed air for driving locomotives and hauling fast passenger trains? That is the vision of William E. Boyette, of Atlanta, Ga., whose amazing challenge to the iron horse—a monster truck-shaped locomotive propelled by compressed air—was about to undergo a trial run between Atlanta and Jacksonville, Fla., at this writing. Read the rest of this entry »

Pullman Cars Go Modernistic

COMFORTABLE modernistic furniture and indirect lighting for night reading purposes are features of the new steel and aluminum alloy Pullman observation cars. A buffet containing a broiler, coffee urn, and a refrigerator is also featured.

An observation parlor seating six persons is located at the rear round-end of the car, and a lounge seating 20 persons on sofas and seats occupies the remaining car space.

Novel ‘Land Yacht’ Carries Retired Naval Officer to Work

“YOU can take a sailor away from the sea but you can’t take the sea away from a sailor,” runs an old adage, long known among seafaring men. Such seems to be the case with W. H. Slater, a retired naval officer of Kent, England, who has constructed a novel land yacht with which to travel the five miles to and from his job, which is that of lighting wharf lamps along the riverside. Read the rest of this entry »

Wow, I would totally take this train.

Enjoy the Finest

BETWEEN CHICAGO AND THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

It costs no more!

“CITY OF PORTLAND”

This delightful Domeliner is the finest and fastest between Chicago and Portland, with through Pullman to Tacoma-Seattle.

It is the only train to Portland featuring three types of Astra Domes; a Dome Lounge, Dome Coach, and Dome Diner (exclusive on Union Pacific) with three exquisite dining areas—the Dome, and downstairs the main dining room, and the Gold Room for private parties.

Pullman and Coach equipment is the very latest in design, providing both relaxing comfort and convenience. And, of course, the money-saving Family Plan Fares apply on all Union Pacific trains.

• • •

Through Hertz Rent-a-Car service, we can have a car waiting for you at your destination.

UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD

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Cars That Fly

YOUR car of the future may have no wheels. It may not even touch the road as it races along the turnpike at speeds well above 100 mph while you and your family sit back and enjoy the ride—without fear of accident or injury.

This revolutionary new mode of travel was recently unveiled by the Ford Motor Company in the form of the Glideair—a wheel-less vehicle that rides on a thin film of air a fraction of an inch above the road. Read the rest of this entry »

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SAN FRANCISCO FIGHTS FOR ITS CABLE CARS

“Save our cable cars,” say Frisco’s citizens. But the City Hall boys have other ideas.

By Louis Hochman

SAN FRANCISCO shakes again! In 1906 it was Nature that rocked the infant town into a mass of ashes and rubble. Today it’s human nature that is giving this Golden Gate City the shakes with a wave of public sentiment that has spread far beyond the city’s own boundaries. Once again the people of San Francisco have gathered in force to go fight City Hall. It’s a battle between practicality and sentimentality and the object of this latest uprising is once again the dinky little cable car—that ding-dong relic of the Gay Nineties that continues to clang its merry way up and down the precipitous hills of San Francisco in blissful defiance of modern science and the forces of progress. Read the rest of this entry »

New German Air-Railway Car Speeds 100 Miles Per Hour

A NEW railway car resembling a zeppelin on wheels, which holds possibilities of a new era in railway transportation has recently been tested in Germany. Utilizing the principles of streamlining throughout, the long silver monster carrying 40 passengers attained a speed of more than 100 miles per hour on a straight stretch of track, getting up full speed in slightly more than a minute. Earlier secret trials are said to have resulted in a 114 m.p.h, speed.
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Jap Train Will Do 450 mph (They Say!)

PROFESSOR Hisanojo Ozawa of Japan has designed a radically new type of train that he claims will do 450 mph, whizzing by jet propulsion between upper and lower rollers. Recently he tested a model, which did a modest 25 mph but functioned perfectly as a mechanically guided missile. A problem: how do you get around curves? Professor Ozawa has the answer: curve lines of no less than 2.48 miles radius. •

Rail Flyer to Set New Speed Marks

THE rail flyer, the inventor has called this new space-consuming creation of engineering, and it has several very good reasons for its existence.

It is so constructed that it is able to overcome one of the great problems of rapid transportation; the problem of traction. Every vehicle has tractive power, the ability to move forward under applied force.
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