Harley Earl championed the rise of the first modern streamline train with an astrodome top. The following sentence taken from the article below offers another surprising parallel to all the other great ideas this individual brought to life:  “Astra Liner—a composite of all the practicable ideas and a train the like of which the world has never seen before.”

Mr. Earl uniquely timed the public release of his innovative new concept design to appear in GM FOLKS magazine so that thousands of dedicated GM employees could be first to witness his novel "astro dome" idea. It wasn’t a coincidence that the story also came out in the monthly tribute issue, shown above, that would begin a new era of prosperity in America: The post war boom. Notice below, in the forth paragraph, how Mr. E was an unusual player in that he freely shared this new technological innovations with GM's competitors (the following 1956 NEW YORK TIMES news story at the bottom of this section also credits Mr. Earl with this train's design as well as the advanced concept idea of the astro dome feature). Sy Osborn's words, "We have informed railroads and car building companies that they may freely use the designs" was no doubt just an extension of Harley Earl's overall intention [after all, back then, everyone who was anyone inside America's auto world knew that this one man had invented Detroit's dependency on design]. Mr. Earl didn't ever brag about his designs or far reaching ideas since he loathed self aggrandizement and knew all his work would stand up around him in history when all the scholars came to drill down on the facts.