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Wonder Subway Built Under Skyscrapers on Stilts

Propping up multi-storied skyscrapers on stilts, burrowing beneath railway tunnels, digging out huge chunks of solid rock, thousands of workmen have just completed the most amazing engineering job of its kind on record—the construction of New York City’s newest subway, which is the very last word in underground transportation luxury.

by THOMAS M. JOHNSON

ONE winter day 62 years ago, wheels turned in the first underground railway ever operated in an American city. Really it was a block-long subterranean pneumatic tube, through which a steam-driven fan blew a singe 18-passenger car, then sucked it back. Read the rest of this entry »

Ball-Shaped TRAIN Pulled By Magnets

THE “bullet-flash,” most radical idea in railroad design since the recent advent of streamlining, has just been conceived by a Swiss engineer. Based on electro-magnetic principles, the new ball-shaped iron horse is expected to roll on standard-size rails at a speed as high as 300 m.p.h.
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A RAILWAY that FALLS Down Hill

GERMAN engineers have recently proposed the building of novel “roller coaster” railways for use on short runs between cities and suburbs. The ingenious yet simple construction of this railway, which literally gets its power from falling down hill, is well shown in the accompanying drawing.

Each waiting station is elevated forty or more feet in the air, and passengers are lifted to the platform in an elevator. The train, consisting of two or three cars, awaits them on a level stretch of track beside the station. Read the rest of this entry »

Old Railway Thrills Tourists

TOURISTS visiting Cincinnati, Ohio, are thrilled by a ride on the local Mt. Adams Plane Railway, which was erected in 1877 to carry street cars up a 980-foot incline. Only the demand of sight-seers has saved the novel railway from being abandoned in the march of progress, over two million persons using the railway annually.

The lifts of the old railway are drawn by four cables and operate in balance, one ascending while the other descends. Street cars using the lifts are kept on an even keel while traveling the 28.9% grade.

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Home on a Train

SOME hobbyists let their hobby occupy them night and day. Well, the reverse is true of Dr. John Payne Roberts. He occupies his hobby!

For Dr. Roberts and his wife make their home in an old railroad car which is a prize exhibit of the Museum of Transport, located in Kirkwood, on the western outskirts of St. Louis. The Museum contains a remarkable collection of old railroad equipment.
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Air-Rail Line Spans America in 48 Hours

RECENT inauguration of regular 48-hour New York to Los Angeles or San Francisco air-rail service by the Transcontinental Air Transport, Inc., in which the Pennsylvania railroad is financially interested, is interpreted as the outstanding commercial aviation development of 1929 in the United States.
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I love the upside down train, that’s a great idea.

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A Century of Railroads on Parade

OLD AND NEW fashions in American railroads are on exhibit at Chicago’s lake front in a Railroad Fair celebrating 100 years of railroading in the Middle West. Pioneer locomotives with steam up run alongside the newest steam and Diesel-electric trains, while some cars yet unbuilt are shown in mockup form.
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Gliding Cars Planned for new Railway

TRAINS THAT WOULD SKIM TRACKS AT HIGH SPEEDS PROPOSED IN DARING TRANSPORTATION SCHEME IMAGINE a flying railroad in which captive airplanes serve as cars. Skimming through the air, the streamlined cars are expected to attain speeds up to more than 200 miles an hour. A cage of rails restrains them from actually leaving the track.

That is a brief outline of a project for a high-speed transportation system put forward by a New York engineer, Walter H. Judson, pioneer aviator and formerly chief engineer for a railway car manufacturer. In Judson’s opinion, all engineering details have been worked out. With the cooperation of makers of railway and electrical machinery, structural steelwork, and airplane equipment, he has prepared a complete plan.
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Twin Amphibian Cars for Monorail

Swift, Overhead Trams to Be “Equipped with Floats to Cross Water Like Boats AMPHIBIAN trains that can whiz above desert sands on an overhead rail, or plunge into the water to ford a river, are contemplated by the Soviet Government in an amazing plan to tap mineral wealth in Turkestan. They are to travel three projected monorail lines of unprecedented design, totaling 332 miles in length and crossing deserts and rivers.
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Wow, I had no idea this existed, it reminds me of the system they have at Disney World. It seems like a really useful idea for a big city. Apparently it went under, so to speak, in 1959.

Chicago’s Freight Subway Does the Work of 5000 Trucks

ONLY one out of a thousand residents of Chicago realizes that his city has an extensive subway system. No people ride in this subway, however, except the operators of the trains, for it is purely a freight subway. The photo above gives some idea of how the loop district is undermined by a network of tunnels; practically every department store and large business establishment has underground connections with the freight subway. Read the rest of this entry »

It may be impossible, but, damn is it cool looking!

New Rail Car Runs on Air-Electric Perpetual Drive

FROM coast to coast by rail in 24 hours, traveling literally on air—that is what W. E. Boyette of Atlanta, Georgia, claims for his invention, a railroad engine that runs almost entirely on air.

Air for fuel—speeds of up to 125 miles an hour on rails—low transportation costs-—these are possibilities conjured by Boyette’s air electric car. After being started by batteries, the car needs only air to keep it running—a close approach to perpetual motion. Read the rest of this entry »

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The NEW ERA of RAILROADING

IT took ninety years to start the revolution that set the streamline train on its time-shattering career. You knew that revolution had come when you read that the fiery old iron horse had been stabled and in its place, trailing a string of coaches straight and smooth as an arrow’s shaft, was no grimy black engine but a strange new power car of “cobalt and sarasota blue, golden olive and pimpernel scarlet.” Like an arrow the streamliner shot across the country, caught the public imagination, beckoned a new generation that thought the railways outmoded and slow to come for a thrilling hundred-mile-an-hour ride in this aluminum bullet.
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