Imagine a potential cultural or technical divergence. Now in that world, who might you be?
Someone in the military convinced Eisenhower in 1953 that instead of building the Interstate Highway program. They needed railroads to carry the heavy military freight. Eisenhower reluctantly agreed, over the loud cries of the automobile industry. And so modern rail became widespread. And since the national electric grid was being built at the same time, they electrified all the locomotives. Soon regional and local rail and light rail, carried most goods and people to almost every corner of the country. In two decades, almost every urban environment had mass transit based on electrified rail and trolley. Sure there were cars and trucks. But nation wide, only 1 in 1,000 people owned one.
The heavy freight and passenger rail system was finely nationalized in 1965 under LBJ. And the program of continually updating and modernizing the running stock of the new "Amrirail" completed the first continental high-speed rail line, running from New York to Los Angeles. In 8 hours. In the late 70's. Yes this was much slower than commercial airlines, but cheaper and much more comfortable. So air traffic became mostly light fright, and emergency passenger travel.
The personal automobile never got a foothold, so cities remained dense, and suburbs were limited to the regions light rail corridors.
Me: raised by a rail design engineer, wanted to follow in his footsteps, so I became a space flight engineer working for a subsidiary of the national railcar corporation. That won the contract to build both the Mercury and Gemini NASA flight capsules.
Someone in the military convinced Eisenhower in 1953 that instead of building the Interstate Highway program. They needed railroads to carry the heavy military freight. Eisenhower reluctantly agreed, over the loud cries of the automobile industry. And so modern rail became widespread. And since the national electric grid was being built at the same time, they electrified all the locomotives. Soon regional and local rail and light rail, carried most goods and people to almost every corner of the country. In two decades, almost every urban environment had mass transit based on electrified rail and trolley. Sure there were cars and trucks. But nation wide, only 1 in 1,000 people owned one.
The heavy freight and passenger rail system was finely nationalized in 1965 under LBJ. And the program of continually updating and modernizing the running stock of the new "Amrirail" completed the first continental high-speed rail line, running from New York to Los Angeles. In 8 hours. In the late 70's. Yes this was much slower than commercial airlines, but cheaper and much more comfortable. So air traffic became mostly light fright, and emergency passenger travel.
The personal automobile never got a foothold, so cities remained dense, and suburbs were limited to the regions light rail corridors.
Me: raised by a rail design engineer, wanted to follow in his footsteps, so I became a space flight engineer working for a subsidiary of the national railcar corporation. That won the contract to build both the Mercury and Gemini NASA flight capsules.