558392
submission
morphovar writes:
Modern Mechanix has a short article and drawings on an underground freight system that existed in Chicago in the first half of the 20th century, similar to the ones now being researched
in Western Europe (see the submission some hours ago:"the pneumatic networks of the 21th century"). The Chicago network had 150 electric locomotives and handled a volume of tonnage each day equivalent to that carried by 5,000 trucks.
437724
submission
morphovar writes:
More than 200 years ago it was already possible to send messages throughout Europe and America at the speed of an aeroplane — wireless and without need for electricity. The optical telegraph network consisted of a chain of towers, each placed 5 to 20 kilometres apart from each other. Every tower had a telegrapher, looking through a telescope at the previous tower in the chain. If the semaphore on that tower was put into a certain position, the telegrapher copied that symbol on his own tower. A message could be transmitted from Amsterdam to Venice in one hour's time. A few years before, a messenger on a horse would have needed at least a month's time to do the same.
