Tag: quirky

  • Ship impact protection? What the heck is that? Well its a means of protecting something from being hit by ships. You know ships can be pretty nasty if they collide with something, say another boat, a quay or even buildings sited alongside water. Thus its said that Canary Wharf is the only Elizabeth Line station…

  • Tower Subway gets filmed!

    London’s mysterious Tower Subway, which opened in August 1870 and was the site for the city’s very first tube railway even though that was a small narrow gauge line with just one carriage carrying a few passengers a time under the Thames, has been the subject of curiosity for decades because many spot its circular…

  • I am writing this because I have seen two of Martin Zero’s videos on the excellent work by James Brindley, which revolves around the construction undertaken in the 1750s to resolve both flooding issues as well as give an abundant working water supply to the mines around the Irwell Valley at Ringley, north of Manchester.…

  • Piccadilly Circus tube station, one of the busiest on the tube, certainly in terms of tourism, is also a station where the unusual happens all the time. I have written about the staff once before. They have indeed been doing something very unusual. This is their learning some sign language (BSL), no doubt because its…

  • Southwold Railway

    The Southwold Railway – England’s premier three foot narrow gauge passenger railway! This week its ninety years since the last passenger trains ran. 2019 is also the 140th anniversary of the line’s opening. This somewhat quirky railway was in service for just fifty years, and remained moribund for several decades more. It has left a…

  • Louis-Dominique Girard’s Gliding Railway, in French known as the The Chemin de Fer Glissant (later it was called the Sliding Railway) was an unusual type of train whose origins began in the late 1860s as a test line in the ground of Girard’s home near Paris. It is said Girard developed his patent from somewhat earlier attempts to build a…