Predictions, Sponsored by the Weatherhead Company

The boating propaganda almost got it right. Fiberglass and/or aluminum hulled boats replaced the heavier wooded models.

And, co-ro-lite(corolite) is still being sold in (at least) the UK. Click Here

At first glance the refrigerator resembled an old IBM control console. Kind of funny, that.

The railroad advert was a swan song for passenger service. It was obvious that the private auto would replace rail passenger service after the war. The auto offered more flexibility of destination.

And finally (yes, I hear you cheering), IIRC Raymond Loewy was a design engineer who did work for a number of railroads, the very competitors to the helicopter bus.

I think that what replaced rail passenger service was another product of World War II, the jet plane, which made it possible to make almost any American or European trip between one meal and the next. If the railroads, in the days of their dominance (basically to World War I), had not behaved with such brutal arrogance, they might not have found people so eager to desert them when they could.

The prediction about boats was dead on, that about helicopters an interesting miss. Kitchens have become much easier to work in, though not on account of the horizontal, countertop refrigerator. The microwave oven, microwave-cum-convection oven, the toaster-oven, the electric slow cooker, the flat-topped stove have transformed the kitchen of the Greatest Generation. Egmont Arens, who wrote so accurately about the fiberglass boats that now skim over the waves with small engines that use so little fuel, invented (among many other things) the ice cube dispenser.

I still wonder to this day in climates that have winter why we don't have a refrigerator/freezer unit that uses cold filtered air from outside when it reaches a certain temperature. If we can have a duct for the dryer why not for the fridge ? It would save a lot of energy.

BrokeDad's refrigerator idea sounds like a small-scale version of the geothermal heat pump. It might work.

@BD- My sister has a huge garden and my two nephews go goose and moose hunting in the fall. Now a moose is a big fellow so they share a lot with her. Meaning she has a large freezer. Also meaning it probably would take the use of a chainsaw to get it in the basement. Fortunately they have room in their unheated garage. Since the garage is about a block away from the house, they do have a small JIT freezer.
.'. - When the fall freeze comes, they unplug it and re-plug it in come the thaw.

Geniuses think alike; fools seldom differ! Where we differ is that I wanted to run the coolant fluid piping outside to an outside radiator, not through ducting. Hey, on a very hot summer day, your refrigerator is heating your your house to cool your food.

BMN, that must be a mighty cold climate. Meat should be kept frozen at 0º F or lower, according to the experts.

Maybe BD will get bored with computers and build a green winter refrigerator/freezer. It would be worth millions! Remember your friends honey. 😉

@BrokeDad -- Using outside air for cooling a refrigerator/freezer would be practical only in very rare instances.

Ducting in outside air is a disaster. You have screen/filter to prevent bugs, especially mites, from entering -- that entails a fan, solenoids to open/close flaps, and a control circuit. Even with the best insulation, the duct is going to have condensation -- besides being a breeding ground for mold and an excellent bug habitat, at some times of the year, you'll have water dripping off it, rotting your wall from the inside out.

Also, you're removing a heat source during the winter. Your refrigerator/freezer very, very modestly reduces how hard your furnace has to work.

Well, maybe he will be able to work the bugs out of it eventually.

Well, Lurelle Guild at least got it partially right as far as Europe is concerned... between many cities, train travel is a serious option. I wouldn't have chosen to go to Paris or Berlin any other way. Airports? No, thank you.

I agree with RB, we did Northern Italy mostly by train. And Vienna -> Bratislava was a quick hop.

I'm just glad they didn't eliminate the taint from my kitchen.