WWI Photography US in London detail
WWI Photography Catalog

The Fine Print

« Trikewriter: 19th C Bicycle as Outdoor Printing Press | Main | A Not-Obvious Gross Understatement: Bomb + Plane = Drop, 1915. »

Comments

Deb

I found my way here via Patti. I agree that it was an unusual idea and am curious as to what else M. Carron might have invented. I was also thinking how curious he might be to see some of the rides at current day amusement parks.

slevert

"they would each get to go twice as fast as any human had ever traveled before (65 miles per hour was about the speed of the fastest train constructed)"

Were trains really the fastest form of transport in 1891? I don't have any stats on hand, but I'm willing to bet that in those days a good bobsled could briefly outrace the world's fastest train. I mean, today's bobsleds can go 120 mph or more, so 65 mph must've been easy enough to pull off a century ago, eh? I could be totally off base here, but it's an interesting thought at any rate.

John Ptak

DEB: thanks for having a looksee! I have no doubt that M. Carron would have been interested in today's amusement park rides--even if this is all he saw as a visitor to the future he would no doubt be astonished by the vast quantity of new materials. all of the light, strong stuff that go into those rides. Even as an engineer I feel that some would seem as though they were from another planet.

John Ptak

Slevert: I think that I'm more or less correct with 65 mph. Point is that if it was 65 or 75 or 85 that the folks on this ride would still be going twice as fast than anyone else had traveled. ANd lived. Which is a tricky point here because I have a feeling that the folks in the capsule would've been mush at the end of the day.

The comments to this entry are closed.

Categories