GOING THROUGH BOSTON. I scanned this map from my well-used copy of Edward Hungerford's A Railroad for Tomorrow, a 1945 effort that contemplated one national railroad system with de-luxe transcontinental passenger trains and multi-purpose boxcars for the freight. (The Great Northern "hopper bottom" box and the Soviet counterpart are inferior substitutes for the stack car for containers and the rotary-coupler gon for coal.) One idea that might have more potential is the creation of a cross-Boston suburban train service.


There is a serious proposal for such an improvement in Boston's current service.