Transport Curiosities

Transport Curiosities 1850 - 1950 written by John Wade and published by Pen & Sword Books - £20 - Hardback - Pages 208

Over the years many weird and wonderful types of transport have come and gone, some of which succeeded against all odds, others that spectacularly failed, and some that never got beyond a designer’s drawing board. Railway engines driven by horses, for example. Or maybe the surprising number of cars, boats and trains driven by aeroplane propellers. In this book you will find cars that flew, cars that floated on water and boats that ran on roads; steam-powered aeroplanes, electric submarines, railways driven by pneumatic air, aircraft with flapping wings… and a whole lot more. If you are a person who would like to have flown in an airship or travelled in a train whose carriage sat on stilts above the sea with its tracks below the water, or dreamed of riding on a London to New York railway that took twelve days to travel the long way around the world, or maybe just fancied fixing your bicycle to a railway track, then this book is for you.

This book is like a collection of ideas from British eccentrics, some of the designs in this book could fit into four categories as they were just not practical, didn’t get the financial support, physically impossible and just bizarre. In a way, all the designs shown were fantastic in their own ways and some were just out there. I must admit some of the bizarre inventions were my favourites but just impossible to work or be mass-produced. I found this book fascinating and I think the beautiful drawings and designs really make the book as it made every design seem cool but the book has that cool 50’s feel to it. As I said at the beginning this book looks like a collection of eccentric designs produced in the shed of a mad engineer. I really enjoyed this book and would happily recommend it for a good read.