Some years ago, I read an article about the invention of a technology that possibles the storage and play of motion pictures by vinyl records. It would just need special cables between your phonograph and your TV to get the "movie vinyl" properly played. True, the idea is facetious in the age of DVDs, but the goal of the inventor was "to prove that video recording and industry would have been technologically possible before the invention of the VCR".
And yes, today I read about the third time a German maglev construction project got aborted. Sometimes I think the Greens are more hostile to the maglev than they even are to nuclear energy, though this time it was a caretaker government and not red-green.
There is also a nice thought about a massive underground maglev network in Switzerland, though it never gained public financial support.
So WI e.g. we have a TL where that kind of "vinyl movie" was invented quite long before any VCR technolgy? Or where we have all these underground far-travelling maglev trains? Any further ideas?