Diesel,who needs it?

[NB Alnwick]

Thing is, electric motors never smell quite as nice as steam or diesel . . .

[cheshire~rose]

An electrically powered car held the world land speed record for a few years in the 1890's.

A marvellous achievement as in those days a person had to walk (run?) ahead of a motor car with a carrying a red flag!

 

I wonder if they had to get an athlete to do the job?

[Hairy-Neil]

An electrically powered car held the world land speed record for a few years in the 1890's.

 

Not sure of the speed but it was well over 100 mph

 

The world land speed record only broke the 100mph barrier on Jul 21st 1904. It was taken in a Gobron-Brillie by Louis Rigolly at 103.55mph.

 

At the turn of the century the record stood at 65.79mph. The car was a Jenatzy driven by Camille Jenatzy

[DHutch]

Bit of a machine wasnt it!

[NB Alnwick]

The world land speed record only broke the 100mph barrier on Jul 21st 1904. It was taken in a Gobron-Brillie by Louis Rigolly at 103.55mph.

 

When talking of 'land speed records' there is a tendency to think only of road vehicles - on the 9th day of May 1904, a train hauled by the Great Western Railway 4-4-0 locomotive 'City of Truro' is claimed to have touched 102.3 miles an hour near Taunton and after an engine change at Bristol, most of the remaining journey from Bristol to Paddington was covered at an average speed of 80 miles an hour. Trains had been achieving speeds of over 70 miles an hour on the fastest expresses since the 1880s - technically, that is faster than you are allowed to go in a car these days. Of course, the speed of 102.3 has often been disputed but contemporary reports support the claim that the crew and passengers on that train were the first people to travel at more than 100 mph - all over 100 years ago . . .

 

As Michael Flanders said in a famous 1960s stage show, if God had intended us to fly, he wouldn't have given us the railways!