Transportation: Riding Sweden's slick rail system: An on-the-scene report reveals how this 11400 kilometer system is kept smoothly running

Ever since I was a kid of twelve, riding the old iron-horse-drawn Twentieth Century Limited (New York Central's crack train between New York and Chicago), I've dreamed of riding up front in the locomotive cab. And the kid in me never grew up; the dream persisted — unfulfilled. So, imagine the thrill of being ushered by my ASEA (the Swedish opposite number of General Electric) host into the cab of an SJ Rc 2 class mainline locomotive, hauling an express train from Stockholm to Uppsala. The driver tooted the typically European high-pitched whistle, and we glided silently — without the jolt one expects in U.S. trains — out of Stockholm's Central Station. The 67-km-long ride was as different from the Penn Central's lurch, jerk, stop, stagger, and start as day is from night.