Footplate Topics

On the Van Kull Kill, S.I.

Well, the Nobel Prize in Literature has gone not to Flann O'Brien (or Myles na gCopaleen) but to Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer. Bag job, if you ask me, but let's move on. Beyond his contributions in letters, O'Brien is rightly celebrated as legendary advocate and analyst of the steam locomotive, in short, a steam man. What he knew about poppet valves, footplates, and 2-4-2 tanks beggars the imagination. 


His innovations, or "modern locomotive therapy" (mostly unrealized due to prohibitive cost), could have saved thousands of lives. Take for example, his proposal (seen below) to outfit slow trains with an ultimate "ramp-car" of his own design. If through "some inexcusable signal-box bungling, a fast passenger train is allowed to overtake a slow local train on the same track," the ramp would prevent a collision by "slow[ing]up the fast train and compel it to roll back again on the tracks." Take note, LIRR.

From The Best of Myles

While resolutely, a steam man, Flann did not ignore your correspondent's hobby-horse, the expressways. His visionary ideas in this quarter would put Robert Moses to shame (were that possible):

We all know by now that we will be the laughing stock of the civilized world unless we can build vast arterial roads. Very well. We are all properly ashamed of our winding undulating country roads and we know too well we are completely without Rest Centres, Rhubarb Dosage Stations, Health Clinics, Dental Hospitals, Vitamin Breweries, Youth Centres--any primitive modern amenity you like to name.


The problem, as Myles analyzed it, was building such vast arterial roads in a country full of hills. The solution, was to employ "some existing level thoroughfare" for the roads. Ireland had two--the canals and the railways. In his plan, railway traffic would be diverted to the canals so that the new roads could occupy the present tracks. While there was sufficient space in the canal beds for trains and boats to ply simultaneously, there was one snag: 
Rough stretches of water often mean that the engine's fire is put out.... The Academy is now investigating the possibilities of having floating trains propelled with the screws of old liners. The advantage here is that the engines could tow barges as well as the adapted coaches and thus make up for the shortage of rolling--or rather floating stock.


And there you have it.