#2872
Train of Tomorrow
🇺🇸 United States ·built by General Motors Diesel· from 1947· passenger train
8 photos from Wikimedia Commons · credits & licences
- 1. Train of Tomorrow cover: General Motors Corporation· Public domain
- 2. Train of Tomorrow Astra Dome: General Motors Corporation· Public domain
- 3. Train of Tomorrow Dream Cloud sleeping car: General Motors Corporation· Public domain
- 4. Train of Tomorrow Moon Glow observation car: General Motors Corporation· Public domain
- 5. Train of Tomorrow Sky View dining car: General Motors Corporation· Public domain
- 6. Train of Tomorrow Star Dust chair car: General Motors Corporation· Public domain
- 7. Train of Tomorrow technical: General Motors Corporation· Public domain
- 8. Train of Tomorrow locomotive: General Motors Corporation· Public domain
what is it?
The Train of Tomorrow was an American demonstrator train built as a collaboration between General Motors (GM) and Pullman-Standard between 1945 and 1947. It was the first new train to consist entirely of dome cars, which were the brainchild of GM vice president and Electro-Motive Division (EMD) general manager Cyrus Osborn, who conceived the idea while riding in either an F-unit or a caboose in the Rocky Mountains in Glenwood Canyon, Colorado. After GM built a 45-foot (14 m) scale model of the train for $101,772 ($1,680,280 in 2025 dollars) and displayed it to 350 officials from 55 different Class I railroads in 1945, the Train of Tomorrow was built by Pullman-Standard between October 1946 and May 1947.
base stats
Bars compare against all trains: 600 km/h (maglev), 1,700 seats; power, weight and number built on a log scale up to 20 MW, 1,000 t and 20,000 built.
fun facts
- First built 79 years ago, in 1947.
- Top speed is 1.2× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
- At full speed it would cover Amsterdam–Utrecht (≈ 40 km) in 15 minutes.
- 1.5 MW is about 18 family cars (~85 kW each) flat out.
- Weighs about as much as 11 African elephants (~6 t each).
- 24.1 m long: about 5 cars parked nose to tail.
- Seats 216: 4 full city buses (~50 seats each).
- Served for 17 years (1947–1964).
carriage / wagon: Unpowered passenger coaches or freight wagons, pulled by a locomotive.
spec sheet
- built
- 1947
- in service from
- 1947
- retired
- 1964
- status
- retired
- number built
- 1
- kind
- carriage / wagon
- traction
- steam
- origin
- 🇺🇸 United States
- builders
- General Motors, Pullman Company
- top speed
- 161 km/h
- power
- 1.5 MW
- wheel arrangement
- A1A-A1A (locomotive)
- formation
- Dome Coach (rail), coach, Dome dining car, Dome sleeping car, Dome observation car
- length
- 24.1 m
- weight
- 66.7 t
- capacity
- 216 passengers
From the Wikipedia infobox and Wikidata. Blank means the sources don't say.
Sources: Wikidata Q28465446, Wikipedia: Train of Tomorrow (CC BY-SA 4.0).Updated 2026-10-25.