The April 24, 1960 edition of Arthur Radebaugh's Closer Than We
Think imagined a futuristic world of robot-driven trains.
Looking at this image makes me think that someone could produce
some pretty awesome steampunk art featuring James J. Hill and a
Katrina Van Televox type robot, even though the "robots"
described in this strip weren't of the humanoid variety. Future
trains will be fully automatic -- robots that can regulate their
own speed and control their own movements to meet the most
precise schedules. The Union Switch and Signal Division is
currently working on two kinds of electronic "brains" to make
this possible. One type would be a trackside "decision maker,"
to regulate train speed, routing, starting and stopping. The
other would be a "control servo," to signal that the robot train
is obeying orders -- or isn't, and why. A central monitoring
panel would oversee train movements for hundreds of square
miles. The first such installation may be on the New York subway
shuttle trains. Next week: Lunar P