By Peter De Keles

Author  Bio China's Modern Railway System seems very familiar. Look at these photos and see what you think.

Modern? Yes. But turn the hands of time back 70 years and tell me if you don't see what American Train Travel used to be.

Modern, sleek, aerodynamic for the time, with First Class service. Big stations that served as hubs, with railfans taking as many pictures as possible.

Politics aside, it looks like a train I would love to ride. Time travel aside, I would also love to ride the Super Chief.

Trains

Stations

Railfans

Services

Crews

China's trains

I spent some time in Shanghai last year and rode both the "regular" high speed train (at a mere 180 mph) and the maglev (at closer to 270!) The stations are amazingly clean and vast! It was quite an experience. Great fun! dave

Dave Bodnar - 02/22/2013 - 13:51

passenger 'service'

Heck, I'd be glad to just go back to the streamliner era with Daylight, Zephyr, Super Chief, 'City of:...' daily trains. They were all very well maintained and competitively priced. Given today's miserable experiences with airlines and their rapidly rising costs, just getting back to that 1950's pre-Amtrak level of service would be a blessing. Any progress towards hi-speed rail would simply be frosting on the cake. Remember those old trains could easily maintain 90 MPH and were capable of 125 MPH, before the age of ribbon rail and laser leveling. We need to fix the grade crossings for safety, too.

Mike Evans - 02/24/2013 - 08:00

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