Imagine a futuristic way to travel to Chicago in the morning and be back home same evening. As time unfolds there would be a bright, fall morning in downtown Albert Lea, with a sparkling new glass and stainless steel station. You might walk, ride your bike or drive a short distance to high-speed rail. This is a story about Katherine, a fictional young university graduate in Albert Lea. The time is November 2018. Her big day in Chicago is just an hour and a few minutes away!
This exert is taken from a guest column by William Hume in the Albert Lea Tribune. This short story depicts a newly graduated college student named Katherine who is among the first to use a high-speed rail to go from Albert Lea to Chicago on a daily basis. Kate is a supposed graduate of Albert Lea High School who went on to become an award winning Olympic athlete. She received her master’s degree and is now interviewing for an important job with the world’s leading architectural firms in Chicago.
But this story isn’t focused on Kate. It is more-so directed on the engineering miracle that makes her story possible, a high speed rail stretching from Minnesota to Chicago. The article goes into great detail describing the train with its solar glass windows, 400 mph speed, and advanced personal settings.
Unfortunately, this column is fictional, and a high speed rail train like the one described currently does not exist. But according to guest column writer William Hume, his story isn’t as fictional as it may seem.
Hume worked as a land surveyor in the Minnesota Twin Cities area doing mechanical engineering. He is one of only several writers in the United States who focuses on the topic of high-speed rail, and the only one in Minnesota. Hume has written some 30 articles similar to the column written in the Albert Lea Tribune. The story about Kate was actually the last of several columns that were published in newspapers in Northfield, Faribault, Owatonna, and Austin; all of which were stops for the fictional high speed train.
Although the train is fictional in this story, Hume believes with the modern day technology we now possess, this type of high speed rail doesn’t have to be fictional. Yet despite having these capabilities to manufacture a piece of engineering work like this one, Hume also believes it will never happen.
“It would take a totally separate track, which would cost a lot of money,” Hume said.
Hume predicted that the cost would be somewhere between five and ten billion dollars, so unless it becomes a priority, it is a very unlikely possibility.
Since Hume’s retirement he has had a chance to write these type of articles, which he does for three main reasons. Mostly it is to exercise his knowledge of engineering, to inform the reading audience of new technology, and lastly to inspire people to what the future might look like in Albert Lea.
“People need to think about the future,” Hume said.