Comments on: Amazing trains that never were

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

London to St Paul? Sounds like a pretty good deal for someone in St Paul and not so good for someone in London.

“Come on kids! We are all going on a train ride.”
“Yaaaay! Where to daddy? Paris? Berlin?”
“No, even better, St Paul Minnesota!”
“Noooo daddy no!”

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The North Pole route appears to continue on to Luna.

Anyone know the story behind “Jo’s Back Track?”

By: Lincoln

Lincoln — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Ah St Paul, the railway capital of the world. The first time I visited that bustling city I was a young boy. I remember gazing in amazement at the colossal railways leading due east, north, south and west. Times were simpler back then. A man was a man, a boy was a boy, and a train was a train. Now that I think of it, seeing all of the railway workers interfacing in such an efficient way was one of the most defining moments of my life.

By: Roy Trumbull

Roy Trumbull — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Going back a century or more the biggest cons were associated with railroads. Lots of systems promoted, money collected, but never built.
Worse were the real rails that were taken over only to have their treasuries looted leaving a bare shell. Agents delivered satchels of cash to state legislatures. One who was honest took money only from one side.
Once Vanderbilt (the younger) got in a price cutting contest with Jay Gould for shipping cattle east. Vanderbilt went below his cost for some time before he found out he was shipping cattle owned by Gould.

By: TurquoiseDays

TurquoiseDays — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I’m more concerned about whatever caused Belgium to disappear into the North Sea…

By: romulusnr

romulusnr — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I suppose it is moot at this point, but the first problem I see with that map is that it’s a straight line on a Mercator projection. The shortest line from St. Paul MN to London UK would not go through Portsmouth NH or Cornwall. It would shoot directly up through Ontario, Quebec, and Labrador, buzz past Greenland’s southern tip, slice Ireland at about the Ulster border, and trudge through Wales to its eastern terminus.

Don’t even get me started on those lower left corner lines purporting to lead to Sacramento and San Francisco that go through Texas…

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarchi/522960846/sizes/l/in/set-1691104/

By: Inventorjack

Inventorjack — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I love how that St. Paul to London bridge requires support cables that go all the way to Holland.

Also, that tunnel to the Sub Oceanic surely holds a Guinness World Record. That’s one serious tunnel!

(By the way, the notes on the St. Paul map specifically state the map is *not* of St. Paul, Minnesota, which is why they put a tiny little Minneapolis in the upper left of the map.)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Need a section on the Breitspurbahn http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breitspurbahn IMHO.

By: Micah

Micah — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

People might not want to go from London to St. Paul. But West St. Paul is a completely different story!

By: Antinous / Moderator

Antinous / Moderator — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

London to St Paul? Sounds like a pretty good deal for someone in St Paul and not so good for someone in London.

Maybe the Londoners want to experience a Northern European monoculture.

By: muteboy

muteboy — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

The rail zeppelin reminded me of the guided dirigibles in Jack Vance’s ‘Durdane’ books. Book cover here:
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/v/jack-vance/anome.htm

Maglev is cool in a kind of futuristic way, but I’m glad the current efforts in the US are sticking with state-of-the-practice steel-wheel-on-steel-rail.

By: victorvodka

victorvodka — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

way to build extra track by not following a great circle route (which would connect boston to london via halifax, nova scotia, as anyone who has ever flown from the east coast to europe will know)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I notice the list didn’t include the currently touted California High Speed Rail Initiative, surely another unbuildable rail line.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Wait, I thought this was the tube to Saint Pauls…

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

all it needs to build these kinds of trains is good pr by good people. .~.

By: blearghhh

blearghhh — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

My biggest question is why St Paul? I mean, it’d just be underused, because while I can see why people would want to go from St. Paul to London, who in their right mind would want to go from London to St. Paul? Once everyone left, the city’d just be empty.

By: Rezmason

Rezmason — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Interesting.

But I’m pretty certain that the St Paul railway illustration was satirical when it was written. It’s available here as a PDF, at a size that you can read the description.

http://content.mnhs.org/maps/archive/files/g4144_s4a6-1871-2f_ea7530855c.pdf

Maybe at the time it was written, someone from St Paul was making an ambitious proposal for a public transit system.

By: cinemajay

cinemajay — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

If you’d been to the Minnesota State Fair you’d know what a crock that statement truly is.

/boiled sausages = do not want