Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Back to the future rail carriage


An illustration in a catalogue for the 1951 Festival of Britain had this odd idea of "The Observation Coach of Today" for rail travel. It appears that the concept was for an end-of-train car with big windows although the seats don't look too comfortable, at best suited for an urban light rail vehicle.

Something akin to to it but fortunately much better was created for the Overlander long distance passenger trains between Wellington and Auckland and the Bay Express (defunct since 2001) between Wellington and Napier.

The Festival of Britain was intended as a kind of "let's be optimtistic about the future in the midst of post-war privation" expo and lasted from May to October 1951. From the vintagescans.blogspot.com site.

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