Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy. You may unsubscribe at any time. Around the mid-20th century, trains were in trouble. After the first rail lines were laid in 1804 England, the locomotive’s steamy forward chug seemed unstoppable. For over a century, trains were the unmatched champion for anyone looking to get somewhere further than a short horse ride away. But by the late 1950s, that all started to change. The automobile’s rapid technological ascent meant more commuters were opting to get behind the wheel than on commuter trains. Air travel, propped up by significant government backing in the U.S. and Europe, shed rail’s ridership further by making long-distance travel faster. On top of all that, vast stretches of rail infrastructure across France, Belgium, and the Netherlands lay in rubble, casualties of World War II German …