Category:
Trains and Other Vehicles on Rails

Rail-Delay Scarf

Knitted by Claudia Weber of Germany to visually represent the delays she experienced each day, for one year, on her rail commute between Moosburg and Munich.

[She] knitted "two rows per day" and she chose "grey for [delays] under five minutes, pink for between five and 30 minutes delay, and red if she was delayed on both trips, or one trip by over 30 minutes."

Weber put the scarf for sale on eBay where it was bought for €7,550 by the German railway company Deutsche Bahn.

More details: euronews

Posted By: Alex - Fri Jan 25, 2019 - Comments (6)
Category: Fashion, Trains and Other Vehicles on Rails

B. T. Express



Disco, plus train whistles and train sound effects made by mouth: great sounds that go great together?


Wikipedia page on the band.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Nov 19, 2017 - Comments (0)
Category: Music, Trains and Other Vehicles on Rails, 1970s

Railroad Velocipedes

I imagine you could cobble together such a rig fairly easily, if you had the right skills, and do a lot of illegal rail-riding even today.



Original foto here.



Essay from which above foto drawn is here.

Posted By: Paul - Sun Dec 11, 2016 - Comments (12)
Category: Motor Vehicles, Technology, Trains and Other Vehicles on Rails, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century

Train delayed by elephant

The Bakersfield Californian - Jan 23, 1937


Train Delayed by Elephant's Antics
McCOOK, Neb., Jan. 23 — A Burlington Road passenger train was four hours late getting into Denver because an elephant kept the engineer and conductor guessing.
The engineer, officials of the road said, kept stopping the train, and the conductor repeatedly signaled for him to proceed, each wondering about the frequent stops.
Investigation disclosed an elephant in the baggage car was pulling the airbrake rope with his trunk.

Posted By: Alex - Fri Mar 18, 2016 - Comments (1)
Category: Animals, Trains and Other Vehicles on Rails, 1930s

Is your railroad invested in atomic research?

An ad placed in Time magazine (April 26, 1948) by the "Federation for Railway Progress" boasted about their investment in atomic research, and urged railroads to join the federation to benefit from all the great advances that atomic research would soon bring to the transportation industry:

Will your railroad have a place at the atomic research table?
No industry stands to benefit more from atomic "vitamins" in its diet than the undernourished railroads...
A new, lighter and stronger metal—which could be applied to the construction of light-weight freight and passenger cars—may well come out of atomic research.
There is also the promise of new and more efficient lighting and heating systems, and other possibilities which only properly directed research could uncover.

Almost 70 years later, is it possible to say if U.S. railroads actually did benefit in any way from atomic research? I've never thought of railroads and atomic research as being in any way related.

Posted By: Alex - Wed Aug 26, 2015 - Comments (9)
Category: Atomic Power and Other Nuclear Matters, Trains and Other Vehicles on Rails, 1940s

George Bennie’s Railplane



I want to live in a world where a system of Bennie Railplanes has been in existence for eighty years.

Posted By: Paul - Mon Jun 29, 2015 - Comments (4)
Category: Eccentrics, Inventions, Air Travel and Airlines, Trains and Other Vehicles on Rails, 1930s

Getting Off on the Right Foot



This anonymous fellow, despite resembling Archie Bunker, is my new hero for sensible competence. His tolerance for falling is awesome. This is definitely not one of those exercises in boredom.

Should I ever become a hobo and take to riding the rails, I will owe any success to him.

Posted By: Paul - Sat Jun 27, 2015 - Comments (6)
Category: PSA’s, Trains and Other Vehicles on Rails, 1970s

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Alex Boese
Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes.

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Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.

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