The January 2006 issue of Popular Mechanics magazine arrived yesterday. Lo and behold, they have an article about trains in it. Other than being written in PM’s usual breathless pie-in-the-sky you’ll-see-it-tomorrow tone, it looked pretty decent. Have only skimmed it so far, but didn’t see any huge technical blunders. Haven’t looked at their website to get a link and don’t know how to post one anyway, but their website is popularmechanics.com. I’d like to hear reactions from those more technically knowledgable than me.
I couldn’t find the article you mentioned, but here is a link to a PM story about the Graniteville wreck:
http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/transportation/1513937.html
JOdom,
Can’t find a link to the article you mention. Can you provide a basic overview of the article’s content as it relates to trains? Is it a maglev concept? The doublewide “SuperTrain” concept? A return to 1930’s streamlining concepts?
The article is about new technology the railroads will be trying in the future. Things like hybrid locos, PTS, electronic braking, GPS systems, improved dispatcher communications and one man or no man train operations.
Pretty much a fluff piece written by someone with no understanding of railroads and operations who just went to the suppliers and followed their line or marketing BS.
Semi interesting at best but something of an overview of things in the pipeline to watch for.
I haven’t seen it, but I can imagine… The cover probably had some kind of George Jetson robot maglev train floating on air or something, right? 
Dave
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