The original Switchback Railway at Coney Island was the first roller coaster designed as an amusement ride in America. It was designed by LaMarcus Adna Thompson in 1881 and constructed in 1884.[1] It appears Thompson based his design, at least in part, on the Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway which was a coal-mining train that had started carrying passengers as a thrill ride in 1827.

For five cents, riders would climb a tower to board the large bench-like car and were pushed off to coast 600 ft (183 m) down the track to another tower. The car went just over 6 mph (9.7 km/h). At the top of the other tower the vehicle was switched to a return track or “switched back” (hence the name.) [...]

[via The Retronaut]

One of the movie I have always appreciated on this topic is Train the Vie (Train of Life): unfortunately not a real story, since this time the plan to escape the Holocaust of a small eastern Europe Jewish village eventually succeeded.
And this time the train, used by the village pretending to deport itself, seems to be the only way to escape Nazi horrors.

January 27 marks the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp. In 2005, the United Nations General Assembly designated this day as International Holocaust Remembrance Day (IHRD), an annual day of commemoration to honor the victims of the Nazi era. Every member nation of the U.N. has an obligation to honor the memory of Holocaust victims and develop educational programs as part of an international resolve to help prevent future acts of genocide. The U.N. resolution that created IHRD rejects denial of the Holocaust, and condemns discrimination and violence based on religion or ethnicity.

Train de vie – Bande annonce FR
Caricato da _Caprice_. – Stagioni complete e singoli episodi online

Nothing makes you wish for a high-speed rail, a flying car, or a teleportation device like having to travel over Thanksgiving. Apparently, the future of chaos-free commuting is in Europe, Japan and China, where passengers enjoy the luxury of trains that glide along at 200 miles per hour. Meanwhile, those of us living in America get to choose between radioactive scanners, enhanced pat-downs, and the joy of holiday highway congestion. Injustice! Suffice to say, our maglev train envy is making the spirit of Thanksgiving a little harder to grasp this year.

Here, the list of the retro-visions re-proposed by PopSci last 24/11:

Flying Train: December 1919
NYC’s Suspended Railways: March 1923
How the Scottish Will Travel: October 1930
The Soviet Union’s Amphibian Monorail: July 1934
New Train For Old Tracks: April 1935
High-Speed Long Island Railroad: March 1954
Two-Headed Trains: March 1956
Bullet Trains for Britain: November 1961
Driverless Train: March 1963
Aerial Transit System: May 1972

[...] I want to alert collectors and early-bird holiday gift-givers alike to the latest Railroad Memories (www.railroadmemories.com) auction, which is now online and closes Fri., Oct. 8, at 5 p.m. Mountain Time (that’s 7 p.m. EST and 4 p.m. PST). There are some 500 lots with a wide selection of great items in an equally wide price range: Even if you are not a railroad enthusiast per se, there is a lot of crossover into other collecting areas – dining car china and silver, glassware, lanterns, playing cards, badges, advertising, equipment and instruments, furniture and more – so don’t wait to check it out! It’s all vintage Americana, it’s all in great condition – you’ll find no flea market junk here – and it all smacks of nostalgia!

So, make your offer on www.railroadmemories.com!

La locomotora de vapor (the steam locomotive): 31 fine drawings, explaining better of several words technology and best practices to drive a locomotive.

The pdf is available on Scribd R2.0 file repository.

La Locomotora de Vapor – RENFE

I suppose it refers to first Talgo II train set produced in the U.S. in 1949 by the American Car and Foundry Company (ACF) under the direction of Spanish engineers.

Photos were taken by Al Fenn.

For those who like to have a piece of story hung up their walls, there’s the possibility to order a printed and framed version of the chosen photo directly from the web (starting from $89.99).

Of course, there are plenty of photos to be viewed on this powerfulf search engine; I think I’ll post new ones in case I see a new photo set.

Having a look to the Europa Film Treasures website I found this short and very interesting video whose story is presented herafter (source: EFT website).

It’s nice to feel emotions in b&w of people crossing the track, staring at the marvellously brought by the tramway and first video recorder apparatus. A scene not so different from modern curiosity linked to Google Street View Cars taking shoots around metropolis.

Above a YouTube version of the film that can be watched in better quality clicking this link.

This film is part of a documentary series on Barcelona directed by Ricardo de Baños (1884-1939). This pioneer of the new Spanish cinema makes multiple film reports on his native town and surroundings: The Parks (Los Parques) in 1907, A Bird-Eye View of the Port (Barcelona y su puerto a vista de pájaro) and The Monserrat in 1909.

Ricardo de Baños directs his first film in 1904. He also authored numerous fiction films amongst which Blood and Sand (Sangre y Arena) in which he fosters the major national genres: filmed operetta (sp.: zarzuela), bullfighting films and regional fictions.

This exceptional cameraman captures with originality Barcelona modernization through a subjective camera. For the Universal Exposition of 1888, Barcelona acquires important infrastructures, in which she takes much pride, such as: town gas, electricity and especially the tram.

The 1888 Exposition launches the first surge of Modernism, term chosen to designate Catalan Modern Art. Barcelona ranks as the artistic capital of Spain. The tram goes up the Paseo de Gracia, already bearing the stamp of the architect Antoni Gaudi I Cornet (1852-1926). The famous Casa Milà has been a building site for already two years. The tram then dashes to the heights of the new city.

The Editing Company Ricardo de Baños brought the standard print of a nitrate element in 1986 to the Spanish film archives of Madrid. A negative print of this same print was restored in 1997, the nitrate film base being in a very bad state.