Saturday, August 18, 2012

No Love Lost

From a New York Herald description of the motive power for the 1870 Beach Pneumatic Subway:

"The blower is known as Root’s Patent Force-blast Rotary Blower, and the principle of it is greatly in use in the West, in all forges, instead of the old blacksmith’s bellows. It is an Indiana invention, and is one of the few good things that come from that state." [Emphasis mine]

Bite. Me. (And dammit, we went ahead and sold them the limestone for the Empire State Building anyway. We even keep the hole it came out of, in case they change their minds and send it back.)

The good news? After the subway demo ended the tunnel had a second life as a 100' indoor rifle range!

Yeah, New York failed on that eventually, too.
____________________________
PS: I was hoping to Go Places and Do Things today. Instead, I have got a migraine the size of a western state and flaring arthritis. Oh, joy. OTOH, I did finally get a good long soak in the tub.
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13 comments:

  1. Brandoch DahaAugust 18, 2012 at 6:00 PM

    That Roots blower design is cool. I'd never heard of those. It reminds me of a gerotor. Or (heh heh) Wankel. Heh heh. He said Wankel. Heh heh. Heh heh.

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  2. jedAugust 18, 2012 at 8:56 PM

    Now I have Klaatu earworm.

    Ah ah ah ah aaaaah all aboard sub-rosa subway ...

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  3. LarryAugust 18, 2012 at 9:10 PM

    That would be one heck of a diesel engine to use a supercharger that big...

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  4. Roberta XAugust 18, 2012 at 11:02 PM

    Well done, Jed -- also, remember the Formica artwork on the old Subway sammich shop tables? Wasn't that the same little round train?

    Larry: There's some darned big stationary Diesels still out there, if you wanna find a testbed...

    Brandoch, the piston engine goes put-put-put, but the Wankel goes MMmmmmm. (I used to have a thoroughly unprintable version of the radio jingle by the original artist -- got erased by mistake.)

    ...You guys have all seen the Tower Spherical Steam Engine, right? Beauchamp Tower, he da man!

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  5. Frank W. JamesAugust 19, 2012 at 3:51 AM

    I think there is more than a single hole that the limestone for the Empire State Building came out of in Monroe County.

    Several years ago (almost 3 decades) I was one of a group that shot a 20mm Lahti in said hole and we blew big chunks of the impact wall (at least 200 yds away) into the water below.

    Yeah, it was FUN!...

    All The Best,
    Frank W. James

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  6. Frank W. JamesAugust 19, 2012 at 3:52 AM

    I think there is more than a single hole that the limestone for the Empire State Building came out of in Monroe County.

    Several years ago (almost 3 decades) I was one of a group that shot a 20mm Lahti in said hole and we blew big chunks of the impact wall (at least 200 yds away) into the water below.

    Yeah, it was FUN!...

    All The Best,
    Frank W. James

    ReplyDelete
  7. NAVIGATORAugust 19, 2012 at 9:17 AM

    ROBERTA

    THE CYLINDRICAL SUBWAY CAR powered by a large fan in a tube like tunnel was a proposal of AUGUST BELMONT who despite his wealth the project didnt get past TAMMANY HALL so
    it was bricked up and forgotten by most
    in the city a foot note in a book not often read

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  8. New Jovian ThunderboltAugust 19, 2012 at 9:29 AM

    The Remington 700 bolt action rifle is a New York invention, and is one of the few good things that come from that state.

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  9. New Jovian ThunderboltAugust 19, 2012 at 9:29 AM

    or as the British call it... a 'spanner'

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  10. Fuzzy CurmudgeonAugust 19, 2012 at 10:31 AM

    When I worked at Stewart-Warner back in the early '80s, engineering was working on building a 40' vacuum braze oven for the aluminum plate fin heat exchangers we were building. (The intent was to replace the molten salt brazing process, which left a lot of goop in the passes that had to be cleaned out, which wasn't always successful.)

    And one of the things I remember from the training course for the vacuum braze was that it used Roots blowers to draw the rough vacuum. Great big hulking Roots blowers :) It was a thing to see. Sadly the process never worked out very well.

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  11. jedAugust 19, 2012 at 12:51 PM

    I have only vague recollections of Subway shops, back in the day when they used to cut the bread into a trough. But yeah, I think it did feature the pnuematic theme -- certainly on the wall decor. I don't go there much these days, and I haven't paid any attention to the walls when I have, so for all I know, they still use that. Drawing a blank on the Formica. BTW, Formica still makes the old Boomerang pattern in one color -- alas not the coral.

    That spherical steam engine is a wonder. Quite ingenious, these devices from the the age of steam.

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  12. jedAugust 19, 2012 at 12:55 PM

    @NJV: I thought the Rem. M700 owed more to Oberndorf than New York.

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  13. New Jovian ThunderboltAugust 19, 2012 at 7:20 PM

    Right. So New York has nothing going for it, then.

    ReplyDelete

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