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A-POWERED TRAINS IN GLASS TUBES

They’ll give airliner speeds plus weather-free reliability.

By Frank Tinsley

THE train of the future, whipping passengers vast distances through continent-girdling tubes at speeds and in comfort far surpassing that of modern air travel, is no longer merely a dream in the minds of our more imaginative designers and engineers. This old idea (New York’s first working subway train was sucked through a tube) has been brought well within the realm of probability—and the hero of this advance is, as has so often been the case in the history of technology, a new material.
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Train Picks Up and Drops Passengers Without Stopping

IF RAILROADS generally adopt a plan suggested by Rupert Wales, a Buffalo, N. Y. inventor, passengers on non-stop express trains will be able to get off and on at small wayside stations while the train rushes past at top speed. This feat will be accomplished by the use of a mono-rail transfer car, according to Mr. Wales. Read the rest of this entry »

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Train Robbers Routed by Science and Brawn

ALL the world . loves detective stories. Here is one that deals with real men and tells the thrilling truth about their fight to save millions of dollars in stolen goods. Ten years ago American railroads were losing $13,000,000 a year to box car bandits. On one road, scientific methods and the careful training of road police have now cut off about ninety-nine percent of this loss. In this story you see how these men do their work.

By BOYDEN SPARKES

I LIKE detective stories. Best of all I like stories of real detectives. Consequently when Professor Charles P. Berkey, Columbia University geologist, told me that a pile of rocks on his table was a clue in a mysterious robbery I pleaded for details.

“I’m just a helper on this job,” said Professor Berkey. “The real detectives are members of the New York Central Railroad police force. I am not at liberty to tell you about this case, but if you see Carl Jellinghaus, the railroad’s superintendent of Property Protection, perhaps you can get the whole story.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Due This Year: Trains That Can Go 150 M.P.H.

Electric cars will soon cut travel time between New York and Washington, in a bold U. S. program to speed travel by rail

By ALDEN P. ARMAGNAC
DRAWINGS BY HENRY B. COMSTOCK

All a-BOARD! Psshhh-the doors slide closed. The silvery train leaps forward. Back into your seat cushion you go, as if in an airplane taking off. No nonsense about it, this train’s really going to ride—in just 150 seconds it will accelerate to 125 m.p.h., more than two miles a minute. For it aims to get you to your destination in a travel time matching that by air—maybe less.
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Fast Polish “Torpedo Car” Powered by Diesel Engine

Poland’s “torpedo train,” a streamline rail car that travels ninety-three miles an hour, bears the reputation of being one of Europe’s speediest trains. It is driven by a Diesel motor with automatic clutch, operating on an extremely economical basis. The car, one of several in service on Polish railroads, carries eighty-six passengers. The engineer’s cab is set back from the low, protruding radiator.

Mobile Power Plant
GAS-TURBINE power plants on rails have been conceived by Allis-Chalmers engineers as emergency units to be used when power plants fail or disaster disables transmission lines. Still in the blueprint stage, the turbine generators mounted on railway trucks for rapid movement will be built in 3000 and 6000-kilowatt units, to operate as a sole source of electric power or to be synchronized with an existing power system. Read the rest of this entry »

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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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