Technological Regression

Technological progress is usually considered a given.

However, there is at least one technology in America that is worse now than it was in the early 20th century: the train.

In 1942 you could board a train at New York's Grand Central Station at 11:15 p.m., arriving at Montreal's Windsor Station at 8:25 a.m., a little more than nine hours later.

To make that journey today requires a nearly 12-hour ride.

The trip from Chicago to Minneapolis in the 1950s took about four and a half hours; today, the journey is more than eight hours.

Going from Brattleboro, Vt., to New York City took less than five hours in 1938; today, that trip takes six hours—if the train is on time, which it isn't, nearly 75 percent of the time.

From: http://www.slate.com/id/2218394