Flying Platform. US Navy demonstrates its Flying Platform in 1955, a “flying skateboard” or “hover board” vehicle that uses a direct lift rotor aircraft, using contra-rotating ducted fans controlled by the pilot shifting his body weight around to tilt the platform. Although it looked like it could have been a massive development [and a great [...]
From the New-York Post, February 26, 1870 courtesy of the Illustrated Description of the Broadway Pneumatic Underground Railway. THE PNEUMATIC TUBE – A Reception Under Broadway For the first time in the history of New-York a reception with all the accompaniments of furnished saloons, champagne and salads, was held under Broadway this afternoon. On descending [...]
A one-wheeled roller skate, with cushion tires, of the extraordinary design shown in the illustration, has been invented by a Swiss engineer, who claims that the one wheel enables the skater to execute turns impossible on other skates. He intends to increase the value of his invention by driving the skates by motor power derived [...]
The success of the overhead monorail system in the German cities of Elberfeld, Barmen, Vahwinkel, and at Loschwitz, near Dresden, Saxony; and the fact that after due study and consideration, Hamburg is at present building just such a rapid transportation system, has caused J.R. Rauhut, a Chicago engineer, to propose this system for Chicago’s consideration. [...]
A novel scheme was recently exhibited at Cologne, Germany, in a competition of plans for a new bridge. It was felt desirable to construct a high-level bridge that would allow uninterrupted traffic both on land and river. One of the plans entered was for a high-level bridge having slopes as steep as 1 in 12, [...]
Ingenious plans whereby a smooth concrete auto road may be run for 33 miles through a difficult pass of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and a great transcontinental railroad may acquire, at the same time, a system of permanent concrete snowsheds, have been completed by a western engineer. The design for the new snowsheds provides them [...]
Lake Michigan has proved, in one instance at least, an economical highway for house moving. The owner of a house and lot at Fifty-fourth Street and Lake Avenue, Chicago, and a lot at Lake Avenue and Seventy-seventh Street, desired to move the house to the latter, some three miles distant, but found that the moving [...]
An electric car, operating in a tube, which cannot collide with another car, which is run by electricity and yet contains no motor, and which may be derailed and practically wrecked without injury to the propelling member is in almost daily operation at an experimental plant in Paterson, New Jersey ca. 1913. The car does [...]
If the experiments being carried on with motorcycles in connection with the Buffalo fire department prove as successful as claimed, motorcycle brigades may soon become a part of the fire-fighting forces of a number of the larger cities of the country. A large proportion of fires originate in very small ways, statistics showing that about [...]
After years of experimenting with the gyroscope an inventor has begun the construction of a gyroscopic unicycle, 14 ft. high and weighing 2,000 lb., for use on speedways, which promises to attain remarkable speed, 200 miles or more per hour being the estimate of the builder. This vehicle is being constructed along lines similar to [...]
A subterranean passage, somewhat resembling the secret underground exits of medieval castles, differing only in the fact that it is more commodious, is traveled by up-to-date conveyances, and is not secret, is the latest acquisition of the United States Senate. It leads from below the senate wing in the Capitol to the new senatorial office [...]
Aeroplanes of less wing spread than some of the largest albatross of the South Seas are being produced in England. The wings of these tiny machines extend only 15 feet, while albatross have been known to measure 17 and 18 feet from tip to tip. It is considered likely that air craft of this type [...]
For just 25 cents you can board one of the two orange and black incline railway cars and ride “The Shortest Railway in the World.” This funicular dates back to 1901, when Bunker Hill was one of the most fashionable neighborhoods in Los Angeles and the cars, Olivet and Sinai, ferried prominent citizens up and [...]
The Packard Motor Car Company, of Detroit, is making the first deliveries of the new Packard “Eighteen” town car. This new Packard is exactly like the 1909 Packard “Thirty” in design and construction, but has smaller proportions to adapt it especially to the requirements of city and suburban driving of all kinds. It is furnished [...]
The bridge spans a small canal which was put through the thin but long sand spit named Minnesota Point (commonly referred to as Park Point by locals) in 1870–71. The natural mouth of the St. Louis River is about seven miles (11 km) farther southeast, and is split between Minnesota and Wisconsin. Creating this gap in the tiny peninsula meant that residents who lived on the new island needed to have [...]
The first half of the 20th century is generally regarded as the Golden Age of railroading (becoming very specialized with comfort and luxury) with several famous passenger trains, stations/terminals, and other landmark feats occurring within the industry during that time (roughly 1900 until 1950). This was also the time that the industry saw an all-time high of track [...]
