Earnest F. Carter. Electric Control of Clockwork Railways (1951) After reading this, I wonder why anyone would want to go to the trouble of electrical control of clockwork trains. Carter is a born tinkerer, and his solutions undoubtedly work, but oh what complicated devices he ends up with! A brake that works by electromagnetic attraction to the steel wheel of the (O scale) trains. A ramp with a sliding shoe that engages a pin on the loco and brings it to a slow stop. A magnetic governor to control the speed of the locomotive by creating electromagnetic drag on a spinning iron core. All very ingenious. All to make clockwork trains behave as much like electrically driven ones as possible. And, after all is said and done, no cheaper than electric trains, unless one prices one’s labour at zero or less. A negative labour price means a positive return on one's time, which may be Carter's aim, since he obviously spent many happy hours devising and building his gadgets.
IOW, the book is lovely example of what happens when someone hangs onto an obsolete technology long past its viability. The last chapter describes making a zinc-potassiumbichromate battery, a fearsome thing that requires mixing a sulfuric acid solution. A curio, and a very English book. *** (2007)
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