Horses of Iron

[LockH]

September, 1903


I'm actually not sure what Punch was trying to say about gasoline here... guessing it was not a positive perspective.

[LockH]

August, 1903:

THE MOTOR-CAR BILL.
(Abolition of Speed Limit.)
Right Hon.Walter Long."CONFOUND HIM! HE REALLY OUGHTN'T TO GO AT THAT SPEED!"
Squire Punch."THEN WHY DO YOU LET HIM? YOU SHOULD GIVE HIM A MACHINE THAT CAN'T!"

Punch had this simple solution to "scorchers" back in 1903... Today we have tiny vehicles like the power-assisted bicycle, motor speed limited to 32kmh, and some folks complain they are "too fast"!

[LockH]

October, 1903

A POLICE TRAP.
"I say, Bill, we can't be going more than Twenty Miles an hour! What do you think?"

[LockH]

100 years ago, Death already rode a motorcar (motorized carriage)...

[LockH]

New York Times, Nov 23, 1924

[LockH]

Stolen from the GWL Power/EV-Power.eu website...

[LockH]

[LockH]

A film released on 1945 talking about the design and manufacture of bicycles.
The film is set in the Raleigh bicycle factory in Nottingham, UK.
This film is filed in the (and propery of) British Council Film Collection and is exhibited here for sharing purposes only.

[LockH]

Harley and the Davidsons - Trailer 2016 (3 Night Event on Discovery Channel)
Starts Monday, September 5, 9PM:

[E-Chopper]

Hello want to show you the Baker -Electric Car (it runs with Edison Battery´s)


first minutes show gas-vehicles

move to Minute 3:15 there you get electrified




greetings

Martin

[LockH]

^^ Thanks M! Usual great acceleration (full torque at zero RPM) plus closing remark "Save the planet. Drive an electric..."

[LockH]

[LockH]

I see folks at German magazine Der Spiegel have been amusing themselves digging up a series of old pics of electrics:
http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/elekt ... 07457.html

One example (Giggle translation), "this soapbox-like electric car in November 1941, a sensation in addition to the old-fashioned horse-drawn carriage through the streets of Paris. Because of wartime gasoline rationing horse carriages and electric cars on the streets of the French capital had economy again."


So. Electric traction gained... traction because of the economy AND the bike because of global climate change... sound familiar?
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewt ... 25&p=17181

[LockH]

Mentioned earlier in this thread "James Bigler and his Electric Launch "Electron"" back in Feb, 2012:
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewt ... 9&p=525982

... quoting a chunk out of The Electrical World from September, 1889.

Seems "Google Books" has turned up an update published in Electric Power journal for 1891, summarizing that monthly "Journal devoted to the interests of the Electric Railway and the Transmission of Power for Industrial Purposes by Electricity", July edition.
https://books.google.ca/books?id=uTs8AQ ... 22&f=false

[LockH]

... Oh oh. Seen in "Electricity: A Popular Electrical Journal", May 3, 1893:

An Electric Yacht Libelled
The yacht Electron was recently libelled in the United States District Court by the Electro Dynamic Company to recover a balance of $2,000 due for furnishing the yacht with 250 additional storage batteries and other material in 1891. The batteries were added for the purpose of increasing the motive power and giving the yacht more speed. It was found that the additional cells did not increase the speed to the desired limit and the owner not only refused to pay the $2,000 demanded but entered a cross suit for the recovery of $2,000 already paid. Judge Addison Brown before whom the case was brought decided in favor of the electric company on the ground that the whole subject was in the nature of an experiment which whatever may have been the hope or expression of confidence as to the result in increased speed no warranty or guarantee was assumed by the libellant. The defense having alleged that the batteries were an infringement of the Brush electric patents the Judge ordered the libellant within thirty days to procure from the Brush Electric Company a license to enable the yacht to continue the use of the batteries.

Naughty Electro.

[Warren]

The 2016 motorcycle Cannonball is running this week, open to motorcycles at least 100 years old.

http://www.motorcyclecannonball.com/

This is my favorite entry. He is running e-bike tires.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0GFFQ96mJI

[LockH]

^^ Hehe... "hitting potholes of that era." Of course, not a problem today [cough cough].

And "e-bike tires"? Nice to see "ebike tech" driving the bicycle business these days.

[LockH]

RideApart is an exciting portal for the currently underserved $20-billion-a-year powersports industry.

RideApart features engaging and informative content. A site for motorcycle enthusiasts, by motorcycle enthusiasts, RideApart offers unique editorial content that is essential to the next generation motorcycle enthusiasts. Highly sharable content includes reviews, comparison tests, commentary, category round-ups, top 10 lists, how-to guides, expert advice, riding techniques, safety, gear reviews, news, and more.

("And more" includes anything with electric traction. I guess...)

"12 American Motorcycles That Changed History
Twilight Ramble: The Elemental Twelve (Part 1)"
(By Contributing Editor Tod Rafferty)
https://rideapart.com/articles/12-motor ... ed-history

Final paragraph:

Postscript: Well, look here. That’s Twelve Elementals and we’ve covered only the first half of the last century. So Part Two would bring us up to date. The Terrific Twenty-four? Of course with the same format for the British/European marques... The Fantastic Forty-eight? This could go on forever. Which is fine.

Meanwhile, in ES Newz, "45 Years of Electric Evolution in 5 Years":
https://endless-sphere.com/forums/viewt ... 10&t=60452

Ermmm.... Tod? HELLO?

[LockH]

[LockH]

http://www.cyclenews.com/2016/09/articl ... torcycles/

Nice article on these "vintage"/antique/ancient motorized bicycles ("motorcycle"). Includes this bit:

Always looking to expand and diversify, with the profits from bicycling, Pope began making battery-powered automobiles in 1897. The electric vehicle division was spun off that year as the independent company Columbia Automobile Company and was acquired by the Electric Vehicle Company by the end of 1898. Pope tried to re-enter the automobile manufacturing market in 1901 by acquiring a number of small firms, but the process was expensive and many other makers were entering the market. Between the years 1903 and 1915, the company operated a number of automobile companies including Pope-Hartford (1903-1914), Pope-Robinson, Pope-Toledo (1903-1909), Pope-Tribune (1904-1907) and Pope-Waverley, but a breakthrough to profitability in auto making never happened for Pope.

[LockH]

From the early daze of horseless transportation in the City of Angels... where mostly animals still dragged stuff around (and pedaled stuff), and the only "horseless" stuff WAS electric.

[LockH]

Nice bit of "car"/Seattle history...

"The War on Bikes should be history"
http://crosscut.com/2016/10/seattle-war ... e-history/


(Picture caption: A bike path and a sign showing the way to Lake Washington in the early 1900s. Credit: Seattle Municipal Archives)

... includes stuff like:

The very first Seattle car owner, Ralph Hopkins, a well-to-do hotelier, admitted that he took his new toy, a Wood’s electric motor car, for spins on the bike paths. That foreshadowed the bike trail’s ultimate fate: Most were converted to car boulevards, and autos would go on to wreak more havoc than bikes ever would.

By 1910, the paths were mostly gone and the first War on Bikes was pretty much won.

[LockH]

The last photograph/image shown on YT vid "650 Rare photographs of last century and its origins":


(Pic captioned "A woman rides an early electric scooter. [1916]")

[LockH]

Seen in Popular Science magazine... in Jun 2005:

kit.jpg (34.68 KiB) Viewed 5019 times

Fer $79... "complete"? Hehe

[LockH]

"Who Invented the Traffic Light?":
http://www.livescience.com/57231-who-in ... light.html

By Rachel Ross, Live Science Contributor | December 15, 2016

Traffic lights, or traffic signals, are located on most major corners in cities and towns around the world. The red, yellow and green lights let us know when it is safe to drive through the intersection and when to walk across the street as well as when to stop and let other drivers, bikers and pedestrians take their turns to continue on their way.
The first traffic signal

Traffic jams were a problem even before the invention of the automobile. Horse-drawn carriages and pedestrians crowded the roads of London in the 1860s, according to the BBC. A British railway manager, John Peake Knight, suggested adapting a railroad method for controlling traffic.

Railroads used a semaphore system with small arms extending from a pole to indicate whether a train could pass or not. In Knight's adaptation, semaphores would signal "stop" and "go" during the day, and at night red and green lights would be used. Gas lamps would illuminate the sign at night. A police officer would be stationed next to the signals to operate them.

The world's first traffic signal was installed on Dec. 9, 1868, at the intersection of Bridge Street and Great George Street in the London borough of Westminster, near the Houses of Parliament and the Westminster Bridge, according to the BBC. It was a success and Knight predicted more would be installed.

However, only one month later, a police officer controlling the signal was badly injured when a leak in a gas main caused one of the lights to explode in his face. The project was declared a public health hazard and immediately dropped.

Competing patents

Following the accident, about four decades passed before traffic signals began to grow in popularity again, mainly in the United States as more automobiles hit the road. The early 1900s saw several patents being filed, each with a different innovation to the basic idea.

In 1910, Ernest Sirrine, an American inventor, introduced an automatically controlled traffic signal in Chicago. His traffic signal used two non-illuminated display arms arranged as a cross that rotated on an axis, according to Inventor Spot. The signs said "stop" and "proceed."

The first electric traffic light using red and green lights was invented in 1912 by Lester Farnsworth Wire, a police officer in Salt Lake City, Utah, according to Family Search. Wire's traffic signal resembled a four-sided bird-house mounted on a tall pole. It was placed in the middle of an intersection and was powered by overhead trolley wires. A police officer had to manually switch the direction of the lights.

However, the credit for the "first electric traffic signal" usually goes to James Hoge. A system based on his design was installed on Aug. 5, 1914, in Cleveland. Hoge received a patent for the system in 1918. (He had filed his application in 1913.) Hoge's traffic signal used the alternating illuminated words "stop" and "move" installed on a single post on each of the four corners of an intersection. The system was wired such that police and fire departments could adjust the rhythm of the lights in case of an emergency.

William Ghiglieri of San Francisco patented the first automatic traffic signal that used red and green lights in 1917. Ghiglieri's design had the option of being either automatic or manual.

Then in 1920, William Potts, a Detroit police officer, developed several automatic traffic light systems, including the first three-color signal, which added a yellow "caution" light.

In 1923, Garrett Morgan patented an electric automatic traffic signal. Morgan was the first African-American to own a car in Cleveland. He also invented the gas mask. Morgan's design used a T-shaped pole unit with three positions. Besides "Stop" and "Go," the system also first stopped traffic in all directions to give drivers time to stop or get through the intersection. Another benefit of Morgan's design was that it could be produced inexpensively, thus increasing the number of signals that could be installed. Morgan sold the rights to his traffic signal to General Electric for $40,000.

The first electric traffic light in Europe was installed in 1924 at Potsdamer Platz in Berlin, according to Marcus Welz, CEO of Siemens ITS (Intelligent Traffic Systems) US. The five-sided traffic light was mounted on a tower and was primarily manual with some automation, which only required a single police officer to manage. A replica now stands nearby and is a popular tourist attraction.

Pedestrian signals began to be included on traffic signals in the 1930s, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation. A "Walk/Don't Walk" signal was first tested in New York in 1934. It even used an upright palm to indicate "Stop."

John S. Allen, an American inventor, filed one of the earliest patents in 1947 for a dedicated pedestrian traffic signal. Allen's design had the pedestrian signal mounted at curb level. Allen also proposed that the signals could contain advertisements. In his application, he explained that the words "Stop" and "Go" could be followed by the word "for," which in turn would be followed by a brand name.

Improving safety and efficiency

Traffic signals continue to improve. Many traffic signals are "intelligent" and can monitor real-time traffic situations, including direction, volume and density, as well as prioritizing public transportation systems, according to Welz.

For example, Welz said, Siemens is working on a project in Tampa, Florida, to implement Connected Vehicle Technology. This system allows the traffic light system to communicate directly with the car and will improve safety and efficiency. Communications are sent from over 40 traffic lights to cars equipped with the technology to receive the basic safety messages either on the rearview mirror or in-dash computer screen.

Simple messages are sent to the cars using both pre-existing and newly installed technologies that allow a driver to receive information such as the state of the upcoming traffic lights and recommendations on speed to get through both a particular intersection as well as the next handful of traffic lights. This project has shown great increases in efficiency in how traffic moves through intersections, Welz said.

The future of traffic lights

With self-driving cars becoming more of a reality, many improvements to traffic signals are considering the new and upcoming technologies. Researchers at the MIT Senseable City Lab published a scenario, in 2016 in PLoS ONE, where traffic signals are essentially nonexistent. In this potential future, all autonomous cars are in communication with each other in what is known as a "slot-based" intersection in which cars, instead of stopping, automatically adjust their speed to pass through the intersection while maintaining safe distances for other vehicles. This system is flexible and can also be designed to take pedestrians and bicyclists into account.

Another innovation called Surtrac is coming out of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, from a company called Rapid Flow Technologies. Pilot tests have been underway since 2012. The traffic signals use artificial intelligence to adapt to changing traffic conditions. The company says travel times have been reduced by more than 25 percent and wait times at red lights down an average of about 40 percent decreasing emissions. The system takes into account second-by-second real-time conditions and is scalable to larger areas since each intersection makes its own decisions instead of a single, central system.

(... and leading image for this article:)