The Train of Tomorrow (1947), by Zachary Beneddeto

6 Responses to "The Train of Tomorrow (1947), by Zachary Beneddeto"

Anthony says:

April 25, 2014 at 9:55 pm

I like that he started out by stating that the reason for these future visions of trains was largely due to the situation created by World War II. Because most of the resources of the United States were going to the war effort, people had to get rations and make a lot of sacrifices in their everyday lives. The trains of the future would have the characteristics and features that would satisfy people’s desires (including some of the things such as comfort, which was reduced during the war. These trains would be fast and comfortable, have table to do work, open space to mingle, seating, and a good view of the scenery passing by. I thought that the slidecast was organized well and had a logical progression of ideas. However, I do not think it was a good idea to spend so much time on modern visions of future trains. I like that past visions of future trains were compared to current trains, but I do not know if it was necessary to mention high speed rail. Focusing on the fact that we envision trains as being really fast may have been sufficient.

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Noah Steinberg says:

April 26, 2014 at 1:50 am

I really liked the contextual support of the “train of tomorrow” before we dove into what the images represent. It gave me a sense that, if I lived in the WW2 era, this would be yet another incentive to support America, because of all of the great things that will happen once we win. I thought it was really interesting how the train was soon scrapped to use as metal, most likely for the technology superior to it, being the automobile. Also, the fact that the article mentioned that food will not spill because of their technology indicates the fine detail that they went through to make this a feasible technology. I thought the narrations were clear and were good lengths for the slides. They provided higher level thinking, such as understanding the presence of racial discrimination. The balance between speed and comfortability seemed to be a trade off through the past, present, and future from when the “train of tomorrow” was originally suggested. Overall, I think that this slidecast provided analysis of the differences between the past, present and future of train travel, and explained them all very well.

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Addison Wechter says:

April 27, 2014 at 7:02 pm

I thought this slidecast was very well done and captured the entire story of the train of tomorrow. Providing information about typical passenger trains of the 1940s helped to illustrate the innovations and changes present on the train of tomorrow. Your explanation of the historical context was clear and easy to understand, and the advertisement was a useful visual. I thought you did an excellent job describing each car in detail because it gave the viewer a good understanding of each aspect of the train. I found it interesting how the rationing and sacrifices of World War II spawned future images of ultimate luxury and style, like the train of tomorrow. Comparing the train of tomorrow with trains of today was also a good idea because it was interesting to see how far off the vision actually was. I also liked that you showed a few current future visions for trains to help expand the context. Overall I thought you did a great job.

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Jacob Haase says:

April 28, 2014 at 12:50 am

I really appreciate the level of detail with which you examine and analyze the train of tomorrow. You do a very good job of breaking the train as a whole into its individual cars and describing what each car specialized in. The context is provided not only for the train, but for the advanced technologies that it featured, and for this I commend you. Another thing that I really liked about your presentation was when you compared contemporary American trains with their European counterparts and attributed their differences to the continents different existing infrastructures. You spoke clearly, and the content was very relevant. You also did a good job predicting the future of travel based on the historical trends of trading comfort for speed and efficiency. There is very little to criticize you on. The only thing you could’ve done to improve this would’ve been to completely fill out each slide with narration to eliminate any silences. Good Job.

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Sean Burke says:

April 28, 2014 at 4:37 am

Mr. Benedetto’s slidecast on the Train of Tomorrow was very well-spoken and thoughtful. The values behind the trains of tomorrow were speed and comfort because the trains would be going long distance and also they were designed for people who had worked hard and served the country from the war, thereby rewarding them with comfort and amenities. Mr. Benedetto made many relevant connections to the topics discussed in class. One example was when he talked about how the advances of trains were not fated or deterministic; they developed for reasons, based on the context and values of the time. It was interesting that the cars were made with intrinsic ideas, for example, Mr. Benedito eloquently acknowledged that the only passengers riding these trains of the future were upper class white people, and therefore the train companies theoretically could afford to sacrifice the number of passengers in favor of more space and comfort of those passengers. I thought it a very clever choice that one image of a train from today had more than one minority in it because it was noted in the slidecast that the only minorities present were in service positions and that the exclusion of minority passengers could have been part of the reason why these trains of tomorrow never quite made it to the big leagues, as they say. Great referrals back to the main idea that the trains of the future were guided by the principles of speed and comfort.

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Drew Beyer says:

April 28, 2014 at 1:20 pm

I found this video very enlightening and thoughtful. I appreciated the fact that you compared the “Train of Tomorrow” to trains nowadays. However, maybe some deeper thinking as to how our values as a society changed to account for this discrepancy or a slide of you thinking out loud about why “Tomorrow” isn’t all it was thought to be would have been good to include. I found it interesting that the train, once built, was merely a show-item like a museum that people didn’t use. Its like even though it wasn’t useful to the people of the time, that society believed it would be in the future for some reason. Also, good job including the racial discrimination, that’s a theme with a lot of these visions of the future.

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