Somewhere in the deep, dark recesses of the Bennion Archive, I’ve got a stack of old Science Digest magazines, a gift subscription my parents bought for me around 1982 or thereabouts. I keep meaning to have a look through them some mellow afternoon when I have nothing better to do, and I’ve even had thoughts of scanning the more interesting covers for my photo gallery, but naturally I never seem to find the time.

SD was a perfect magazine for a boy of a certain age and interest set, a heady mix of straight science, pseudo-science (UFOs, Bigfoot, and the like), and optimistic futurism. I always enjoyed the futurism stuff the most, the gee-whiz articles that tried to predict all the wondrous advances we were going to see in the coming decades, illustrated by wonderful paintings that resembled the covers of the sci-fi novels I loved. Gullible little geek that I was, I really believed that at least some of those predictions would have come to pass by now: the return of airships, bigger and better than Baron von Zeppelin could have ever imagined; orbiting solar collectors that would beam energy back to earth for practically no cost; manned missions to Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn aboard sleek, fusion-powered spacecraft that looked like something from one of my favorite movies; and, of course, those old stand-bys of futurism, space colonies and Moon bases. But the one idea that really stuck in my head for some reason was a new type of train that would float a few inches above the tracks, suspended by a magnetic field like Luke Skywalker’s trusty landspeeder. These “maglev” (for magnetic levitation) trains could, in theory, travel at unbelievable speeds; I recall one illustration showed a maglev rocketing through a sealed underground tunnel, fast enough in a vacuum to cross the United States in a little over an hour.

It all seems like nonsense now, of course… or does it? The AP is reporting that the Japanese plan to launch a long-distance commercial maglev train by 2025. A test model has been clocked at 360 mph, faster even than Japan’s legendary bullet trains. And China and Japan both have short maglev lines already in operation. Germany is also experimenting with the technology.

I had no idea that these trains were anything but some cool paintings in a musty old magazine, and I am quite frankly gobsmacked to learn they’re for real. We may not have a Moon base (yet), but we really are living in the future, aren’t we?

My thanks to Telstar Logistics for bringing this to my attention…