Live Steam

[Stevie D]

A French engineer Charles Lartigue got this monorail built in 1888. It ran 10 miles from Listowel to Ballybunion in Co. Kerry, a seaside resort. It operated barely breaking even until 1924.

Fascinating stuff. A BritishPathe archive film of the working railway is here:
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/along-the-line

[Kirbstone]

Stevie,
That's amazing. I had no idea that any live footage of it existed. Well done for finding that out. Very informative. It was a rocky old ride by the looks of it & coming from the drawing board of a Frenchman it was certainly no TGV!

The little drawbridge with the donkey cart crossing it was pretty unique, too. The date 1931 looks like a release date, not a filming date, as the line suffered severe damage during the civil war and was non-functional after 1924, according to some sources I have read.

T.

[Big and Bashful]

Amazing idea, if not very successful and incredibly unstable looking. What a beast it was!

[crfriend]

Amazing stuff indeed, but "beneath-supported" monorails suffer from a whole lot of engineering problems that end up with "solutions" that usually make dual-rail look pretty darned good. However, "hanging" monorails, viz Wuppertal's century-plus-old one, work fairly well as evidenced by its contunued existence -- and they have the added benefit of inherent "tilting" to counteract turn-radius G-forces on the passengers.

[Kirbstone]

Apparently Lartigue had built one of his A-frame-supported monorails in the French Sahara in N. Africa for hauling mining spoil to the coast. The logic being that the rail wouldn't be obscured by sandstorms. Fair reasoning.

Although one end of the Kerry line was at a seaside town the likelihood of a sandstorm there was remote, to put it mildly, and as Carl said, there were just too many other problems with the design concept.

Re: the Wuppertal Schwebebahn, or hanging railway: I have had the pleasure. For 9 months I worked in Dortmund, not far away and I made it my business on a free day to visit Wuppertal and the monorail in particular. The rolling stock is very modern now, of course, but they had on display the original restored 'Kaiserwagen', which was the royal carriage. On special occasions they put it into use and invite people to pay through the nose, no doubt, to travel in it.

The entire stretch has no junctions and is only 9 miles long, but serves a very densely populated area, so the passenger numbers and loading percentages are high, & there are lots of stops. It's more like a tram actually, but an astounding bit of German concept engineering. Sited over a river for the most part, the bends are in places quite tight, so even though the train maxes out between stops at ca. 35MPH it does swing out noticeably on the curves, thus easing the ride for the passengers.

T.

[Since1982]

That's a relief, after the pepper spray in their own face suggestion I was afraid someone was into spraying live boiling steam in their own face, maybe their best friends face, Ya never know what who is gonna stick what where to see how it feels or changes their day. Some folks have strannnnge ideas about their futures or how they wish to look to their friends. Life changes from day to day. Strannnnge!!

[Milfmog]

Last weekend I visited the Beamish Museum in North East England as described in this post in the out and about in the world at large thread. I'm not really a steam fan, however I did enjoy this rather wonderful "Steam Elephant":


(As usual in my pictures, click the image if you'd like to see a larger version.)

Of more interest to me, though still not really "my thing", were some of the trams they use to move customers around between the various parts of the museum. I thought some of you here might enjoy these:







And before anyone asks; no I did not climb the stairs to the top deck in a kilt. I really did not want to give anyone a clear view of my choice of underwear which would have been a real possibility in the breezy conditions that day.

Apologies for the image quality, I was using a newly acquired pocketable digital and am still learning how to drive the darn thing. I really should have taken my larger Canon with me for the day, but did not fancy carrying it around.

Have fun,


Ian.

[Kirbstone]

He doesn't like Irish Whiskey, doesn't care for Steam much, but falls hook, line & sinker for a a lot of old trams. A man of strange tastes is our Ian Milfmog.....

Fabulous post, Ian. Those trams are very different from one another and each equally interesting. The steam engine is just one step removed from the Stevenson's Rocket.

Great pic. of you on the bridge at Newcastle, with the amazing pedestrian 'eye' bridge and its spatial relationship to the other interesting bridges in view. Never having been there that photo is very instructive. Good looking bloke in a khaki kilt on the bridge, too, by the way. His face seems somehow familiar!

T.

[skirted_in_SF]

We've got one of the boat trams that runs on the F line here in San Francisco from time to time. Ours is from Blackpool.
Link to it's webpage here: http://www.streetcar.org/streetcars/228/

We could use some of the double decker cars. The F line is extremely popular and sometimes has to be supplemented with regular motor buses.

[Sarongman]

An open double decker and a live overhead wire---um---stop that kid with the golf club going upstairs

[Milfmog]

An open double decker and a live overhead wire---um---stop that kid with the golf club going upstairs

Alternatively, give the annoying kid a golf club and bet him he can't knock a pigeon off the wire...

Have fun (I always do, even if some others may not appreciate it ),


Ian.

[crfriend]

Alternatively, give the annoying kid a golf club and bet him he can't knock a pigeon off the wire...

Hmmm.... Let's see.

Pigeon, about 6" long. Check.
Golf club, about 3' long, wedge. Check.
Wire, 3/4-inch diameter, roughly, charged to 600 volts DC. Check.
Golf-club handle, 4-layer wrapped grip, good to about 1800 volts. Check.

FORE!

[Tor]

Guess you better give your good club to the nice kid, and your old beat up, falling apart one to the annoying sort. Get them into a contest to see who can get the most pigeons.

Tor

[Sarongman]

Nope, to make it easier, give the annoying one a nice long copper rod, make sure he's barefoot and it is, at least, damp weather--on a steel wheeled tram there should be no Faraday cage effect Seriously though, some kids are so toxic that you do sometimes feel like creating havoc among them.

[Tor]

The copper rod would be a great deal faster. Just make sure it isn't long enough for him to weld it between wire and tram, so you don't give the driver too much of a reason to get mad at you.

As for the faraday cage, that has more to do with shielding EM fields. The reason a car would be safe is primarily because of the rubber insulation of the tyres, rather than the faraday cage. On the tram, however, those steel wheels should provide a nice solid ground path, especially if he decides to lean on the rail for better stability while pigeon whacking. A little rain would probably make things go a little smoother as well.

Tor