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Tim Dunn @MrTimDunn
, 5 tweets, 4 min read Read on Twitter
Once upon a time (1883, and until 1977!) an incredible pipe network existed below London streets: the London Hydraulic Power Company. It powered incredible things, pushing compressed water from the Thames, into workshops, hotel & flat lifts, cranes & various mechanical things...
The London Hydraulic Company's water pressure lifted the curtains @TheatreRoyalDL, rotated stages at @PalladiumLondon, lifted Leicester Square Theatre's organ, the Palm Court orchestra platform and provided @TowerBridge's backup power. An incredible power.
Elsewhere, the Manchester Hydraulic Power Company's water pressure not only powered warehouse cranes - but re-wound Manchester Town Hall's clock and pumped air thru @ManCathedral's organ. There's equipment preserved at @msimanchester too. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mancheste… (ht @EddyRhead)
Once London's 150+ mile hydraulic power network finally closed in 1977, it was bought up by Mercury Telecommunications. They used the pipe routes for cables -inc the old Thames Tower Subway rail/foot tunnel - & are still used today. Images from @subbrit: subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/sites…
There’s a higher res version of that first map - and Liverpool’s Hydraulic Power network - here, but the original source of the print isn’t noted flic.kr/p/ac7KDH
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Many years ago, Britain had dozens of “camping coaches” all over our railway network. But few still exist. So, today, I’d like to tell you about the history of #CampingCoaches - and this beautiful 1895 converted Travelling Post Office I stayed in last night... (thread)...⬇️
Camping coaches, or camp coaches, were a brilliant idea: The first ten were by the LNER in 1933. The GWR quickly picked up on the idea too - launching great value (car-free) holidays that created extra rail traffic, revenue, goodwill and use of decommissioned rolling stock.
Interiors were often spartan by today’s standards: they were “camping” coaches, after all. But local staff would frequently augment the interiors. There were usually berth beds within compartments, a small kitchen & dining area carved out too. Pullman camping coaches existed too.
Read 18 tweets
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I would like to tell you about an incredible place. Its name is @Bekonscot, the model village & model railway. Created 89 years ago by a very kind man, it rose from his garden and has since given joy to millions. Today is its last open day for 2019, and this is its story...
(1/7)
Bekonscot began in 1927 when Mr Roland Callingham's wife told him that either his increasingly invasive train set must sodding well leave the house, or she would. So Roland & his gardener Tom turned his Buckinghamshire garden into the biggest trainset Britain had ever seen.
(2/7)
Roland enlisted the world's greatest modelmakers, Bassett-Lowke of Northampton, to build his model railway. Well. This was NOT what Mrs Callingham was expecting. Nor did she expect him to turn their swimming pool into "the sea", installing an island and pier.
(3/7)
Read 16 tweets
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Abandoned and rediscovered:
Russia’s incredible 1970 jet-powered turbojet train - built to travel over 250km/h - has been found rusting outside a railcar factory englishrussia.com/2014/05/26/aba…
The USSR's turbojet train - the SVL - was an experiment, roiding-up a standard railcar. It never made it to public service. (Imagine trying to turn that thing round...) But it wasn't the first jet-powered train, nor first to be powered by something intended to move aircraft...
The first jet-powered high speed train was in the USA.
This wasn't the Space Race, this was the RailJet race - 4 yrs before the USSR. The New York Central Railroad's M-497 "Black Beetle" of 1966 used ex-bomber plane engines did 183mph. BUT. Think of bridges. And ballast stones...
Read 6 tweets

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Once upon a time in Italy ....

A thread
Tomorrow could bring confirmation of a new government between the populist 5 Star movement and the hard right League
Predictably, this has already generated countless headlines warning about evil populists and misinformed voters
Read 74 tweets
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Once upon a time, there was a prince named Gabriel who lived in a shrinking kingdom. A blight had swept in from the east, withering plants, sickening animals, and fouling the water. It left behind a great waste where nothing would grow and no one could survive.
For years, the king held audience with anyone who claimed to be able to halt the spread of the blight and restore life to the waste, but no one—from farmers with knowledge of the land, to sorcerers with arcane magics—could find a solution.
Rumor held that a powerful faerie had cursed the kingdom over a slight, real or perceived, and that was why no human magic could reverse the devastation. People were forced from their homes. Some fled west, toward the capital at the foot of the mountains, some to other countries.
Read 172 tweets
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Once Upon a time, long long ago when there was no Internet, we used to phone buildings rather than people, when global trade was confined to a limited number of basic goods and very few services /1
There were Trades Unions. These organisations grew up protecting the rights of workers and furthering socialism and progressive politics in a highly regulated world of trade and capital. /2
Then in the 60s 70s and 80s they increasingly became less effective and struggling with new technology in manufacturing and global capital markets until one day they were brutally put down by the Iron Lady. /3
Read 12 tweets
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Fifteen dead.

In the era the 2nd Amendment was written, there was an incident involving soldiers firing into a crowd.

Five people died.

Nine rifles killed five people.

We called it "The Boston Massacre".

Our outrage over that changed the course of history.
The @NRA and their gun-waving followers would have you believe that the purpose of the 2nd Amendment was to make sure the people of Boston had rifles of their own to fire back at the soldiers.

But no. *More* open warfare in American cities was the last thing they wanted.
The Bill of Rights, #2A included, was written when the minds of its framers were fresh with the memories of occupation by soldiers loyal to a distant power, some of them foreign mercenaries. MOST of the amendments were motivated by the specifics of those situations, some more so.
Read 15 tweets
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Once upon a time there lived a wide (ooh, keeping the typo) old dragon.
The dragon lived in a nest of grapevines, twisted and knotted together, which floated on the surface of a lake so deep it was purple.
Also in the lake lived a team of mermaids, who played water football against the seahorses on Wednesday evenings after school.
Read 58 tweets
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Once upon a time, long before the British, we had our own Vedic system of time keeping. We had 30 muhurtas in a day. Life was quicker paced, organized and more efficient. Each muhurta had a name too. #missingVedicTimes
How did the Vedic people measure the muhurta? How was it standardized across the Vedic civilization to prevent regional asynchrony?
By the use of Clepsydras(water clocks) until Vedic mathematics and astronomy was rigorous enough to arrive at horological constants independently.
The oldest explicit instruction for measuring the muhurta is found in the 𝘝𝘦𝘥𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘢 𝘑𝘺𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘢 of Lagadha, the 1st treatise of astronomy. It is datable quite dependably to~1400BCE by references in verses 6 &7 (1340-1370 BCE using various siddhantas for back calculation)
Read 31 tweets

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