TRAINS OF THE FUTURE.

Auckland Star, Volume LVII, Issue 53, 4 March 1926, Page 12

TRAINS OF THE FUTURE.

TO EXCEED AEROPLANE SPEED. ROLLER BEARINGS AND CONCRETE TRACKS. A new age of transportation, with crack passenger trains running safely at terrific speed on concrete roadbeds, is predicted by Mr. Frank H, Alfred, of Detroit, Michigan, U.S.A., and president of the Pere Marquette Railway. Cars of the new trains are to speed on Toller bearings. The smooth concrete roadway is to be reinforced with steel trusses. The trains are to be run almost

as fast as airplanes. i Mr. Alfred himself, with the assistance i of Paul Chipman, one of his office , ; engineers in Detroit, has worked out the! < type of roadbed and bearings by which j he expects the railroads to remain the standard of long-distance passenger i transportation regardless of the progress | of aviation. And regarding the com- j petition of highway traffic, he is equally | confident, for he "believes the railroads; will eventually take over that form of !

transportation. i "To the airplane theory our answer i is 'safety,'" said the president of the \ Pere Marquette. 'The new roadbed ; and bearings will give railroad trains speed comparable to that of the plane?. And the superior safety of the rails will continue. '"If it is speed the public wants, we can give it to them. By the new system we oan carry people at fast as they want w> go. : "After all. we will just be doing for the rails what others have done already for the highways. When the good roads movement started lots of us thought gravel would be good enough. But the .States went farther, and made the very safest and fastest roads possible. That is what I believe we will do with rails."