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Failed
Innovations Some of failed innovations were so promising, that they are back in inventor's minds again. |
Pneumatic Railways
Fascinating for some, ridiculous for others. Once
upon a time it was considered as competitive for steam locomotion. Its
history was a topic of my doctoral dissertation.
This is the subject that attracted my interest in late 2000, when I was
working on a paper concerning the history of mass transit. I conducted
my researches in the libraries and archives of Paris, New York, London,
Berlin, Warsaw and Krakow. Some of the results I presented during the
international conferences of ICOHTEC and SHOT. Also I published several
articles on this topic both in Polish and foreign scholar journals. Recently
I have defended my doctoral thesis in the Institute for the History of
Science of Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. My dissertation, entitled
Kolej Pneumatyczna w Mysli Wynalaczej w Europie i Stanach Zjednoczonych
w XIX wieku (The Pneumatic Railway in the Inventive Though in Europe and
United States in 19th Century), was based mainly on the patents as the
primary sources.
Swift as
Aeolus: American contribution in developing pneumatic railways as compared
to European achievements.
Paper given on the annual meeting of SHOT,
Atlanta, USA, October 2003.
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Alfred Beach not alone: The American Patents of
Pneumatic Railway in 19th Century, in: ICON (The Journal of the International
Committee for the History of Technology), vol. 9 (2003), pp. 93-107. Based
on the paper given on the annual meeting of ICOHTEC, Granada, Spain, June
2002
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Kolej atmosferyczna (The Atmospheric Railway),
in: Technika Transportu Szynowego, 11/2004, pp. 52-58.
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