Inventors of unconventional forms of motive power

Addis, William Judson
Bullock-powered ground-leval monorail installed in India. Adrian Garner. Monorails of the 19th century.

Adkins, Bejamin Ratcliffe
Co-inventor of Never Stop Railway which operated at the British Empire Exhibition in 1925. Miles Macnair Backtrack, 2017, 31, 710. Many patents iincluding GB 247,716 25 February 1925

Agudio, Tomasso
Born Turin on 27 April 1827; died 5 January 1893. Rope haulage system used on Sassi-Superga tramway between 1884 and 1934. Descriptions in Backtrack, 2018, 32, 120; Locomotive Mag., 1909, 15, 150 (with diagram) and Railway World, 22, 143.

Andrau, Antoine
Inventor of compressed air locomotion in 1839/40 and tested on railway near Paris. Co-inventor Tessie du Motet. See Nick Kelly, Backtrack, 2015, 29, 126. Adrian Garner. Monorails of the 19th century.

Bachelet, Émile
Born in Nanterre, France in 1863. He emigrated to the U.S. in the 1880s. He began his career in Boston as an electrician on the building staff of the Boston Institute (now known as Massachusetts Institute of Technology). He was naturalized a United States citizen in 1888, moved to California in 1889 and then to Tacoma, Washington where he worked as an electrician for the city government and later as an inventor of electro-magnetic therapeutic devices for the treatment of rheumatism. Bachelet discovered that arthritic pain disappeared when he was near huge generators and thus began his experimentation with electromagnets. In the 1890s he conceived the idea of magnetic levitation and worked for twenty years on its application to a train. A model was exhibited in London in 1914 and it received worldwide notice and some financial support. In the early 1900s, Bachelet moved to New York City and formed three companies, Bachelet General Magnet Co., Inc., Bachelet Magnetic Wave Company, and Bachelet Medical Apparatus Company to continue his invention work. However, his interest shifted often from one device to another and he later moved to Poughkeepsie, NY where he continued his invention efforts in a small workshop until his death in 1946. Miles Macnair: Backtrack, 2016, 30, 440-4.
Patent (there are many: only British one on MAGLEV is cited
GB 9573/1912 Electro-magnetic levitating and transmitting apparatus. Published 14 March 1912. Applied 19 April 1911.

Beach, Afred Ely
Born in Springfield Massachussetts on 1 September 1826. Died in New York City on 1 January 1896. Instigator of Pneumatic Transit system in New York under Broadway see Macnair. Backtrack, 2015, 29, 470 and Wikipedia. Aso developed a tunnelling shield..

Beaumont. Frederick
Born in Darfield, Yorkshire, on 22 October 1833; died on 20 April 1899. Educated at Harrow School. Became a Royal Engineer and became involved with ballooning. In 1873 he was placed in charge of the railways used in the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich (Locomotive Mag., 1921, 27, 257) where he applied compressed air as a source of power for locomotives working near explosives. See Macnair. Backtrack, 2015, 29, 760. He is sometimes falsely credited with the compressed air locomotives used in the initial Channel Tunnel works: these were developed by Thomas English.

Beecher, Lina
Battery driven monorail in Ontario, Canada: Ontario Southern Railway. Also Flip Flap roller coaster on Coney Island. Adrian Garner. Monorails of the 19th century.

Bennie, George
Born on 29 August 1891 at Auldhousefield, a mansion in Pollokshaws, the sixth son of John Bennie, owner of a successful hydraulic enginering company, the Star Engine Works. During WW1 he served in the Royal Flying Corps as an aero-engine fitter. He produced several patents, most of which relate to other products.He had a passion for golf and sailing on the Clyde. He devised the Airspeed Railway which was a suspended monorail driven by a propeller and a demonstration system was installed above the LNER Milngavie branch in the Glasgow suburbs. Unfortunately, the depression ruined the chances of implementing a system on a large scale in spite of interest by Charles Boot of Henry Boot (Construction) Ltd and by the LNER. Bennie died in Epsom, Surrey on 19 November 1957.  There is a considerable amount of intering material immediately available on the Scottish National Archive website. The patents listed are difficult to authejnticate due to the limitations of Espacenet. Patents: GB 273041 Improvements in and relating to wheels running on rails or other metal surfaces.  Applied 13 April 1926. Published 30 June 1927; GB 328600 Improvements in and relating to guiding means for travelling suspended cars, aircraft, or the like. Applied 30 June 1929. Published 30 April 1930. GB 328601 The construction of the end of travelling suspended cars, aircraft, or the like. Applied 30 June 1929. Published 30 April 1930. GB 565327 Improvements in and relating to the guide track of travelling suspended cars, aircraft or the like by which lateral movement thereof is minimised or prevented. Applied 29 November 1943. Published 11 November 1944; GB 560068 Improvements in and relating to the braking of cars and bogies used in conjunction with travelling suspended cars, aircraft or the like. Applied 1 May 1942? Published 17 March 1944; GB 560997 Improvements in and relating to cars, airships and the like, suspended from an overhead rigid track.  Applied 7 November 1942. Published 1 May 1944; GB 559038 Improvements in and relating to rigid overhead tracks in suspension systems for cars, aircraft or the like. Published ? Applied 7 November 1942; GB 560919 Improvements in and relating to turn-tables for cars, aircraft or the like, suspended from overhead tracks.  Applied November 1942. Published 26 April 1944; GB 572660 Improvements in and relating to wheels to run on rails.  Applied 31 July 1944. Published 17 October 1945. Mike Zanker. The George Bennie Airspeed Railway. Backtrack, 2012, 26, 374. ODNB entry by Iain F. Russell. Rolt Award winning Newcomen Society Paper: see Trans. Newcomen Soc., 2005, 75, 37-84.

Bompas, Charles Carpenter
Patent GB 5044/1829 Propelling locomotive carriages machines, boats and other vessels (Woodcroft) 29 April 1828. It is unknown whether his compressed air locomotive was ever tested. Parent of better known Canadian missionary bishop with same name.

Boynton, Eben Moody
Born in Ohio in 1840. Died in 1926. Very large number of patents. Boynton Bicycle Railway was operated in both steam and electric forms. Adrian Garner. Monorails of the 19th century. Presumably the locomotives were 0-1-2: being literally single drivers.

Burt, John James
Wooden railway developed at the Cienega Lime & Quarry in California: steam operation ended with the locomotive boiler exploding. Adrian Garner. Monorails of the 19th century.

Caillet, Henri Jules
Inventor of simple portable monorail systems used in association with agriculture including the transport of latex on rubber estates not mentioned by Adrian Garner. Monorails of the 19th century.

Clark, [Josiah] Latimer
Born Great Marlow, Buckinghamshire, on 10 March 1822. Died 30 October 1898 in London. Buried in Hanwell cemetery, Ealing. Latimer Clark began his working life as a chemist, working with a chemical manufacturer in Dublin; but in 1847 he commenced railway surveying, and in 1848 was appointed assistant engineer under his brother Edwin to the Menai Strait Bridge. He helped his brother in preparing his book on that bridge and contributed to it an account of the tides in the Menai Strait.
In August 1850 he became assistant engineer under his brother to the Electric and International Telegraph Company. A series of his researches made in 1853 on telegraph wires formed part of the government report on submarine telegraph cables. Some ten years later he succeeded his brother as chief engineer to the company, and held this post until the various telegraphic systems were nationalized in 1870. Clark introduced several improvements in the telegraph system, notably by coating the gutta-percha enclosing underground wires with a solution which prevented its decay; he also invented a very effective insulator to carry telegraph wires. He filed 150 patents, in different countries, for these inventions. In 1853 he proved that high and low tension currents travelled at the same rate irrespective of pressure; his experiments were repeated before Faraday and delivered at the Royal Institution in 1854. In 1855 Clark published his results in a pamphlet, Experimental investigation of the laws which govern the propagation of the electric current in submarine telegraph cables.
In 1861 Clark entered into partnership with Sir Charles Tilston Bright, and their joint paper read at the Manchester meeting of the British Association in that year led to the appointment of the committee which defined standards for measuring the nature and strength of electrical currents. With Bright he invented in 1862 the method of covering submarine cables with asphalt, hemp, and silica to extend their life (Bright and Clark's compound), and for eight years the firm was engaged in laying telegraph cables, principally in the East. On 25 September 1868 Bright and Clark dissolved the partnership, and Clark formed with Henry Charles Forde (1827–1897) the contracting firm Clark, Forde, and Taylor, of Great Winchester Street, London. Under Clark's supervision some 50,000 miles of submarine cable were laid across the world's oceans, linking capital cities and commercial ports.
Clark was also interested in other forms of engineering. His earliest patent (1854) had been one for ‘conveying letters or parcels between places by the pressure of air and vacuum’. The Pneumatic Despatch Company was established in 1857 with Clark as its engineer and Rammell's involvement. He constructed the 4 foot 6 inch pneumatic tube between the General Post Office (GPO) and Euston Station, but the system was not profitable, and after two years it was handed over to the GPO. In 1874 he entered into partnership with John Standfield as hydraulic and canal engineers; the works of the firm were at Grays, Essex, and it constructed numerous floating docks, notably those at Vladivostok, Hamburg, Havana, Stettin, and North Shields. He was also senior partner in the firm of Latimer Clark, Muirhead & Co., formed in 1875 to manufacture electrical apparatus and machinery.
In 1870–71 Clark took a large part in founding the Society of Telegraph Engineers and Electricians (later renamed the Institution of Electrical Engineers), and in 1874–5 he served as its fourth president. On 6 June 1889 he was elected FRS, and he was also fellow of the Royal Astronomical and Geographical societies. He devoted much of his leisure to astronomy and photography; in 1853 he invented a camera for taking stereoscopic pictures with a single lens, and in 1857 he assisted Sir George Biddell Airy to devise a method of indicating Greenwich mean time throughout the country. J.T. Humphreys described him as a genial man with pleasant manners and a large fund of information and a good memory, all of which combined to make him a popular figure.
ODNB entry by A.F. Pollard, revised by Anita McConnell; also  Hadfield's Atmospheric railways.. Portrayed in Conference of Engineers at Britannia Bridge by John Lucas (see Marshall for key to those in picture). Graham Wild Pneumatic despatch.  J. Rly Canal Hist. Soc., 2010 (209) 160..

Clegg, Samuel
Born in Manchester in 1782. Received a scientific training from Dalton and was apprenticed at Boulton & Watt. On 3 January 1838 in association with the Samudas patented (No. 7920) a leather valve designed to seal an iron tube with the assistance of tallow which acted as the key element in the atmospheric railway.

Coleman, Ezra
Woodcroft lists GB 10792/1845 (30 July) Moving locomotive-engines on inclined planes of railways. Nicholls (Backtrack, 2001, 15, 463 ) suggests source for Neverstop Railway at British Empire Exhibition. Also very expensive on-demand publcation (pig-in-a-poke)

Crew, Emmor
Prismoidal Railway: USP 128597 intended to convey ships across the bar at the mouth of the Mississippi. Adrian Garner. Monorails of the 19th century.

Cristiani, Saverino
See Rutherford. Backtrack, 1995, 9, 657.

Dunlop, James
Son of the famous re-inventor of the pneumatic tyre; became involved with hot air/steam engines. See Rutherford. Backtrack, 1995, 9, 657.
Patent
GB 203361 Internal combustion-operated air compressors and steam generators. James Dunlop. Applied 7 April 1922
Actuating pumps by fluid-pressure motors.-A two-stroke-cycle Diesel engine is formed in one with an air compressor, the engine piston and pump piston being integral. The pump delivers into a chamber surrounding the engine water jacket . The air and some water from the jacket are delivered through a pipe into a tubular steam generator which is heated by the engine exhaust. The engine scavenging air is compressed in the crank chamber. The air heater and steam generator may be independent.

Dutton, Frank
Signal and road transport engineer (1914) with South African Railways developed the Roadrail system with General Stronach . See Wikipedia & Macnair Backtrack, 2028, 32, 283

English, Thomas
Born in Whitby in 1844. Educated at Kensington Grammar School and Royal Military Academy in Woolwich. Involved in railway construction during the Sudan Relief Expedition. His tunnel boring machines were used in the initial Channel Tunnel project which are sometimes ascribed to Beaumont.

Enos, John Augustus
Inventor of electric suspended monorail system and patented Transcycle whererby a large bicycle type wheel ran on a monorail with the load hung beneath Adrian Garner. Monorails of the 19th century.

Field, Edward
Took out several patents in association with New Century Enterprise Ltd and several other individuals on the utilization of exhaust gases from steam or internal combustion engines to admit into the fuel or steam entering the cylinders. See Rutherford. Backtrack, 1995, 9, 657.
Patents
GB 6463/1901 Improvements in the method of and means for the prevention of steam condensation in locomotive and other non-condensing steam engines. Edward Field and Francis Sanders Morris. Applied 27 March 1901. Published 27 March 1902
Engines actuated by mixed steam and air. Consists of means for preventing the condensation of steam in the cylinders of locomotive or other non-condensing steam engines. Air is compressed in a pump, of about one-eighth the capacity of the steam cylinder, up to a pressure a little above that of the steam. The compressed air thus heated is mixed with the steam close to the point of entry to the cylinder.
GB 3129/1902 Improvements in or pertaining to explosion engines and motive fluid therefor. Edward Field, Francis Sanders Morris and Ernest John Hunter. Applied 7 February 1902. Published 24 December 1902.
Gas and like engines.-Steam is mixed with the explosive charge, (a) by admitting it to the cylinder through a special valve, (b) by mixing it with the air in a special chamber, before the air enters the cylinder, (c) by generating steam in the water jacket admitting it to the space below the admission valve, the water being upplied by a small pump to the jacket in sufficient quantities only to form the steam charge, or (d) by drawing the air charge through hot water in a tank connected with the cylinder jacket. The quantity of steam necessary for one impulse in a four-stroke cycle engine will fill the clearance space at atmospheric pressure. Water gas may be used, to form the explosive charge.
GB 4532/1905 Improvements in or relating to internal combustion engines. Edward Field and Francis Sanders Morris. Applied 4 March 1905. Published 22 January 1906
Gas and like engines. - The pressure developed on ignition is utilized to force water into the combustion chamber, to be vaporized by the hot gases. A plunger is arranged over a hole in the wall of the combustion chamber, and is kept down by a spring or the like strong enough to hold it except against the explosion pressure. Water enters the space above the plunger from the cylinder jacket past a non-return valve and a hand-regulated needle valve. When the plunger rises under the action of the explosion, the water above it is forced past a delivery valve to a spraying-nozzle in the combustion chamber. Several coils of the delivery tube may be placed in the combustion chamber to heat the water before spraying.
GB12707/1893 Improvements in locomotive engines. Edward Field, James Musgrave; George Dixon and Francis Sanders Morris. Applied 28 June 1893. Published 2 June 1894.

Hallette (or Halette), Alexis
Alexis Hallette was born in Lille on 14 April 1788 and died on 3 July 1846. He settled in Arras in 1812. (Wikipedia 30-12-2016). In 1829, two locomotives were built by Robert Stephenson in Newcastle for France: one went to the brothers Seguin in Lyon, the other to Alexis Hallette. Initially Hallette produced spare parts, but later began locomotive manufacture. Hallette became involved in atmospheric railways using rubber rather than leather as the sealing system (rubber is a far more suitable material). Experimental systems were set up both in the Arras factory and at Peckham in England. In 1847 a section of railway near Saint Germain on a steep gradient was fitted with the system: vulcanized rubber buffers were fitted to the vehicles for emergency use. Hallette died on 3 July 1846. Hadfield's Atmospheric railways. plus French material off Internet. Hadfield appeared to be unaware of Hallette's Christian name and is entererd in the index as "Hallette, M."!. Son Alfred manufactured locomotives

Hanscotte, Jules Etienne
Invented system for climbing steep gradients using an extra rail rather like the Fell system. Patent: GB 6781/1905 Improvements related to means for obtaining adhesion for traction on steep inclines of railways. Macnair. Tackling the gradient. Backtrack, 2018, 32, 283..

Hardie, Robert
Moderately successful user of compressed air locomotives as motive power on New York Elevated Railway. See Macnair, Backtrack, 2015, 29, 760.

Hodge, Charles
Developed compressed air locomotives and patents sold to Porter Company which successfully sold locomotives to American coal mines. See Macnair, Backtrack, 2015, 29, 760.

Hotchkiss, Arthur Ethelbert
Patent GB 23809/1892 exploited by Mr Bean at Great Yarmouth in Norfolk: appears to have encouraged healthy exercise. Adrian Garner. Monorails of the 19th century.

Köttgen, Carl [Karl] Arnold Bernard Daniel
Patented a monorail system powered by electricity for barge haulage on canals: locomotive preserved in Berlin. Adrian Garner. Monorails of the 19th century.

Larmanjat, Jean
Extensive account of extraordinary "bicycle" like locomotives and rolling stock which was actually installed in Lisbon. Inventor was born in Huriel on 4 March 1826. Patent: GB 1246/1872. Granted 26 April 1872. Adrian Garner. Monorails of the 19th century.

Lewis, William Yorath
Inventor of Never Stop Railway system as exploited at the British Empire Exhibition in 1924/5: see Backtrack, 2007, 21, 52-; also considerable number of patents on improvements to Field water tube boiler. Miles Macnair Backtrack, 2017, 31, 710. Many patents iincluding GB 247,716 25 February 1925 and 207,284 Improvements in or relating to conveying apparatus with Never Stop Transit Ltd; Benjamin Ratcliffe Adkins Applied 6 September 1922. Published 29 November 1923.

McDougall, Alexander
Born in Coldstream in 1809 and died in Southport on 13 November 1899. Invented self-raising flour and a form of atmospheric railway: latter GB 10671/1845 Working atmospheric railways. 17 May 1845 (via Woodcroft)

McGinnis, Maxwell
Involved in Railgrip system to enable trains to climb beyond limit of rail adhesion: set up Railgrip Syndicate which involved Drewry Car and Port Talbot Steel Co. but does not appear to be a patent (Espacenet searched), but article in The Engineer (11 July 1924) page 55 via Grace's Guide and article by Miles Macnair in Backtrack

Medhurst, George
Baptized on 11 February 1759 at Shoreham, Kent. He began as a clockmaker in Clerkenwell until the imposition in 1797 of a duty on clocks depressed trade. He then turned to engineering, working at Battle Bridge, Clerkenwell. His first patent, filed in 1799 (No. 2299) was for a windmill and pump for compressing air to obtain motive power. The sails of the windmill were arranged in the manner which became commonplace for pumping windmills, while his machinery showed great ingenuity, with a governor attached to vary the length of stroke to the pump, according to the wind strength and the pressure of air in the reservoir. The specification included a description of a small rotary engine to be worked by compressed air. Medhurst pursued the idea of taking advantage of the available wind to compress large bodies of air, as an energy source for use when required, throughout his life.
The following year Medhurst patented his Aeolian engine (No. 2431/1800), by which a carriage could be propelled by compressed air contained in a reservoir beneath the vehicle. In an undated pamphlet he proposed the establishment of regular coach services, with pumping stations along the route, to replenish the reservoirs. He also described an engine worked by gas produced by exploding small quantities of gunpowder at regular intervals in the cylinder. In 1801 he patented a compound crank for converting rotary into rectilinear motion (No. 2467/1801).
By about 1800 Medhurst had established himself in Westminster as a maker of scales and weighing machines, machinist, and ironfounder. He was the inventor of the equal balance weighing machine, patented in 1817 (No. 4164), which found a place on the counter of most retail shops, and he also made heavy duty platforms for weighing goods in sacks, cases, or carts, and for weighing jockeys.
Medhurst was the first to suggest pneumatic dispatch, as it was later called, whereby letters and small packages were propelled along a tube by compressed air. This idea was not patented; Medhurst published a description in 1810, followed in 1812 by proposals for a pneumatic passenger railway. His plan specified brick tunnels of 30 feet cross-section, through which closely fitting passenger or goods carriages ran on rails. The carriages might, he thought, reach a speed of 50 miile/h, with goods conveyed at the low cost of a penny per ton per mile, passengers at a farthing per mile. Recognizing that people might not be willing to be propelled through a tube, Medhurst also proposed carriages running on rails on the roadway, connected to a piston driven through a continuous tube beneath the rails. He did not put these plans into action. Like others with similar ideas at this time, he could not devise a practical method of sealing the longitudinal slit in the pressurized tube while permitting the tow bar to pass along.
Medhurst's steam carriage met with more success; carrying one man it ran between Paddington and Islington on 3 April 1820 and again on 6 July. A year later his more substantial carriage ran up and down Paddington Hill at 5 mile/h.. By 1827 Medhurst was offering to sell a carriage able to carry four persons at 7 mile/h.. At this time he was also advertising his patent canal lock, to prevent loss of water, and a leak proof lock gate, though no patents were filed under his name. Medhurst died early in September 1827 and was buried at the church of St Peter and St Paul, Shoreham, on 10 September. From ODNB entry by R.B. Prosser, revised Anita McConnell. Included in Hadfield's Atmospheric railways. also Graham Wild J. Rly Canal Hist. Soc., 2010 (209) 160.

Meigs, Joe Vincent
Born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1840 Adrian Garner. Monorails of the 19th century. includes list of (mainly US Patents). Locomotive Mag., 1935, 41, 130..

Mekarski, Louis [Ludvik]
Born in 1843 in Clermont Ferrand into a Polish family; died 1923. Successful innovator of compressed air powered trams in Paris and Nantes. See Macnair, Backtrack, 2015, 29, 760.

Morris, Francis Sanders
See Edward Field

Neumann, Luigi
USP 2130310 Locomotive with pneumatic transmission by means of a mixture of compressed air and steam. Applied 23 April 1935. Published 13 September 1938. Based on Zarlatti's work

Oliviera, Emilio
Used monorail system for the ascent of Mount Vesuvius. It opened on 6 June 1880. The line was rebuilt by Thomas Mason Cook after 1887but was replaced bby a traditional funicular railway in 1904. Adrian Garner. Monorails of the 19th century.

Parsey, Arthur
Born in 1791; died 3 December 1857. Inventor of compressed air locomotives. Patents GB 8093/1839 (6 June) Obtaining motive power and GB 10352/1844 (17 October) same title as previous (Woodcroft); also American patent (available Google). Good short article by Adrian Gray in Backtrack, 2014, 28, 658.which descibes his compressed air locomotive and its tests on a branch line of the Eastern Counties Railway, possibly the direct line from Great Chesterford to Newmarket. Parsey published a book on Compressed air power in 1852 (Ottley 358) and earlier in his life had published poetry and works on painting miniatures and on perspective in art. A model of his locomotive is part of the NRM collection. Later compressed air locomotives were used during the construction of the St. Gotthard Tunnel

Pilbrow, James
Interestingly both Woodcroft and Dawn Smith spell name with two ls: Pillbrook, but book on atmospheric railways (available as Google book) and Ottley only show one. According to Smith resident Maidstone in 1845.
Books
Atmospheric railway and canal propulsion, and pneumatic telegraph.  2nd ed. London: John Weale, 1844.
Ottley 335 and 341: available as Google book
The eccentric railway brake. Tunbridge Wells, [1882]
Ottley 3231
Patents (probably also later ones)
GB 8630/1840 Steam-engines. 10 September 1840
GB 9354/1842 Steam-engines.  23 May 1842
GB 9658/1843 Application of steam, air, and other vaporous and gaseous agents, for the production of motive-power; machinery for the purpose. 7 March 1843
GB 10190/1844 Machinery for propelling carriages on railways and common roads, and vessels on rivers and canals. 17 May 1844
GB 11069/1846 Propelling on land and water. 31 January 1846
GB 12108/1848 Propelling upon railways and canals; machinery for accomplishing the same. 4 April 1848
GB 13993/1852 Apparatus for supplying the inhabitants of towns and other places with water. 3 March 1852

Pinkus, Henry
An American living in London: in 1835 issued a prospectus for the National Pneumatic Railway Association.. Instigated several experiments for pneumatic traction on roads, railways and canals, and even for ploughing where a rubber hose (NB pre-vulcanization) was suggested. Hadfield's Atmospheric railways.. Patents via Woodcroft: note some early patents on portable gas devices excluded
GB 6570/1834 Apparatus for communicating and transmitting or extending motive-power, for propelling carriages on railways or common roads. 1 March 1834.
GB 6885/1835 Inland transit applicable to apparatus for communicating and transmitting or extending motive-power, for propelling carriages on railways or roads, and vessels on canals. 17 August 1835
GB 8207/1839 Applying motive-power to the impelling of machinery; - also applicable to several other useful purposes. 26 August 1839
GB 8644/1840 Applying motive-power to the impelling of machinery, carriages on railways, on common roads or ways and through fields, and vessels afloat; constructing roads or ways on which carriages may be impelled or propelled. 24 September 1840
GB 8663/1840 Combining and applying materials applicable to the formation or construction of roads or ways. 15 October 1840
GB 8958/1841 Applying electrical-currents or electricity, either frictional, atmospheric, voltaic, or electro-magnetic. 14 May 1841
GB 9835/1843 Applying motive-power in combination with apparatus and machinery, to certain purposes in propelling and applicable to railways, or to ships or other vessels afloat. 13 July 1843
GB 10447/1844 Obtaining and applying motive-power to impelling machinery. 27 December 1844

Rammell, Thomas Webster
Born circa 1815 in Street on the Isle of Thanet. Died in 1889 in Watford (buried in a pauper's grave). In 1857 he published A new plan for street railways which led in 1859 to the Pneumatic Despatch Company with Clark as engineer. This in turn led to an underground tube from Euston station to the Post Office North Western District Post Office in Eversholt Street. This was later extended to Holborn. Hadfield's Atmospheric railways..Roger J. Morgan in Chrimes (includes an extensive list of Patents which lacks numbers and dates). Graham Wild J. Rly Canal Hist. Soc., 2010 (209) 160 also Backtrack, 2001, 15, 463.

Sacerdole, Secondo
See Rutherford. Backtrack, 1995, 9, 657.

Samuda, Joseph d'Aguilar
R.B. Wilson notes that Samuda (1813-1885) was the patentee with Samuel Clegg of the atmospheric system of traction. ODNB entry by G.C. Boase revised by Anita McConnell: born into Portuguese Jewish family on 21 May 1813 in London, and died in London on 27 April 1885. Work of Joseph and his brother Jacob dominates Hadfield's Atmospheric railways..

Schelest, Aleksei (Alexei)
Patent: GB 181798. Improvements in and relating to locomotives. Applied 16 March 1921. Published 16 June 1922. Form of gas turbine locomotive. Gas turbine actually built at Armstrong-Whitworth by 1926, but work terminated in 1927 and project direced to USSR. See Rutherford. Backtrack, 1995, 9, 657.

Stone, Roy
Born in Plattsburg in New York State on 16 October 1836: died on 5 August 1905. Union Army General with reputation enhanced by good highway engineering. More doubtful monorail adventures with probably first steam operated monorail including use of steam rotary engines. Accident on 15August 1878 when locomotive derailed. Adrian Garner. Monorails of the 19th century.

Stronach, R.S.
Associated with South African Railways General Stronach developed the Roadrail system with Frank Dutton. See Wikipedia & Macnair Backtrack, 2028, 32, 283

Taylor, James P.
Patented an elevated monorail system: National Unicycle Elevated Railway Co. Adrian Garner. Monorails of the 19th century.

Turner, Ephraim M.
Patented an elevated monorail system: National Unicycle Elevated Railway Co. Adrian Garner. Monorails of the 19th century.

Vallance, John
Inventor who lived in Brighton. Patent GB 4905/1824 (19 February) Means of intercourse by which persons may be conveyed... Also Backtrack, 2001, 15, 463 Arthur R. Nicholls. There must be an alternative and Internet

Wenner-Gren, Axel Lennart
Born in Uddevalla, Sweden, on 5 June 1881; died 24  November 1961. Higher education in Germany; then worked for Alfa Laval in Germany. Realised that an industrial vacuum cleaning machine would make a domestic vacuum cleaner. Became very rich. Latterly interested in monorail system and developed the Alweg beam system at Alweg-Forschung, GmbH (Alweg Research Corporation), based in Fühlingen, a suburb of Cologne. Alweg name is an acronym of Dr. Wenner-Gren's name (Axel Lennart WEnner-Gren). Wikipedia and Locomotive Mag., 1958, 64, 61. John R. Day described system at Disneyland in Rly Wld., 1960, 21, 135.As the system used rubber tyres KPJ must have written about the system in Rubber Developments

Zarlatti, Fausto
See Rutherford. Backtrack, 1995, 9, 657.; and Duffy
Patents
GB 284782 Improvements in locomotives. Applied 5 November 1926; Publiahed 6 February 1928
GB 315588. Process for using an internal-combustion engine as a compressor. Applied 1 August 1928. Published 18 July 1929
GB 443943 Improvements in diesel type locomotives. Applied 26 July 1924 (Italy)
GB 233078 Improvements in methods of and means for driving railway engines and the like. Applied 19 February 1924 (in Britain). Published 7 May 1925.

Zipernowsky, Karoly
Born in Vienna on 4 April 1853; died in Budapest on 29 November 1942.. Worked for Ganz and patented several electrical devices including those for a monorail for electric tramcars. . Adrian Garner. Monorails of the 19th century..

2016-07-14
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