Article Correctness Is Author's Responsibility: CityLab Daily: This Is What a Transportation Revolution Looks Like

Author: Andrew Small Category: Feed

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What We’re Following

Full steam ahead: At 114 years old, the Nevada Northern Railway is the best-preserved short-line railroad in the United States. Based in the remote town of Ely, Nevada, it offers an experience for the most hardcore of train enthusiasts: driving a real-live steam locomotive along 14 miles of track in a cartoonishly perfect Wild West landscape. Earlier this summer, CityLab’s West Coast Bureau Chief Laura Bliss got to pour the coal into the fire box of an 85-ton, 10-wheeled locomotive, known variously as the “Queen” or the “Ghost Train of Old Ely.”

Alex Kniess/CityLab

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the Transcontinental Railroad, the signature infrastructure achievement of the 19th century. To mark the occasion, Laura went looking for some historic perspective on the transportation news cycle. While today’s mobility innovations run on “an engine of techno-speculation” and promise transformation that’s forever just around the bend, it’s worth looking back at an emerging technology that “actually changed everything,” Laura writes. Read about her day as an engineer: This Is What a Transportation Revolution Looks Like

—Andrew Small

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