And then the car was born and the US stopped developing! Seriously, I like the fact that trains are a daily part of life in Japan (and many other countries). I visited a railroad museum in York, England an it's hard not to be impressed with the mammoth trains that were the highest technology of the day (not airplanes).

BTW, I think it's curious that a large part of the "model railroad" hobby is actually modeling landscapes, rail yards, and buildings. Imagine is RC scale modelers spent as much of their time doing model aerodromes.