The Sausage-shaped trains that almost ruled Boston - Meigs Elevated Railway

[@TrainFactGuy]

Before anyone tells me I pronounced "Meigs" wrong, Google gave me 3 different ways of saying it, and so me, the bold creative I am, ended up using none of them

[@USS_Grey_Ghost]

You said it wrong.

[@markst.germain9286]

NERD !

[@JohnDeere1025r]

You’re pronouncing it how it looks like it should be pronounced 😎😎😎

[@TheAllMightyGodofCod]

You did good. Google is not pronounssiashion doctor or university teacher. 😅

[@engie809]

Train of thought: Shows the Megis train. The Galloping Sausage: “Finally a worthy opponent.”

[@flyingace1234]

The title card "Sausage Express" reminded me of a thing from the old Soviet Union. It was common for people to travel to Moscow to do their grocery shopping, since as the capitol city, it was often where you could find more in-demand goods. The trains that would take people into the heart of Moscow and back were called "Sausage Trains" because it was the most common thing for people to buy on these trips.

[@robrice7246]

8:06 I guess literal galloping sausages do exist after all. Since his dome fits.

[@xtremespotzu]

_Cough cough cough_

[@Dazzalingfossil6040]

Gordon's face went redder than James's paint. Gordon: "Disgraceful!" He snorted. And puffed away.

[@killerbees177]

Dude basically invented the monorail

[@lukechristmas3951]

One could say that this is not only one of the most outrageously looking steam designs but also an outrageous design for monorails in general. Looking back at your 2022 video about the faults of monorails, I think this is could have definitely been a successful monorail/elevated design that could have lasted until the end of steam or even longer if Meigs accepted the alteration to electrify his design. I'm all for it, and part of it is because of how tubular and futuristic the design is. Thunderbirds implied that the majority, if not all of the world's major rail systems, would be of a monorail/elevated design by the 2060s and Meigs' design fits the bill.

[@FishyAltFishy]

i wish we lived in the timeline where all the weird train concepts stayed alive to some extent.

[@MattTCfarm]

Massively better than the other Meigs video I saw. You have more original photos and the other video did not mention the electric conversion issue. It stressed the conspiracy idea, but not to the point of being crazy. I do not see how this would have been better than the modern refined monorail systems. Thank you.

[@laurencefraser]

Part of the problem with modern monorails is the rail being made out of concrete, which causes a lot of problems for switching (it's slow and energy intensive). This seems to avoid, or at least reduce that issue. But the main problem with monorail is that it's only better than regular rail in fairly niche circumstances, so there never developed a standardised, non-propritary network of support infrustructure for the building and opperating of it, so every attempt at building it is stuck with proprietary systems... and then gets screwed over when the corporation Owning those systems decides it's bored with the whole monorail thing, or starts engaging in price gouging, or stops existing... and said corporation is almost always based in an entirely different Country, so impossible to reign in effectively short of just abandoning use of their systems. This system had the potential to dodge those problems simply due to where and when it was created, and the use case it was created for. It's basically just a monorail with the Potential to dodge some of what eventually became the usual downsides of regular monorails if it had actually taken off at the time. (and the historical fate of most alternatives to regular rail has been 'regular rail got better at the things it was supposed to outcompete regular rail at before it could become established, at which point it was thoroughly outcompeted due to the massive amount of mostly-standardized support infrastructure avaialble and lack of restricted propritary equipment involved in regualar rail'.)

[@Azure_Fire]

Your sense of timing is impeccable. I am literally visiting Boston the day you posted this.

[@kingadam69]

Now these are true Galloping Sausages! 😂

[@bostongeis5123]

God Bless you Meigs, Walt Disney would have loved you

[@ConstantlyDamaged]

See, now what it really needed was station platforms shaped like a bun, and with an upper window washing system that used red and yellow industrial soap.

[@notmuch_23]

The two-trail system has endured so long for a very good reason: it balances utility, simplicity, efficiency, and cost the best. If there was a better way to build a train and rail system, it would have been implemented by now. Instead all the changes have been to the rolling stock and locomotives. The alternative designs are intriguing though...

[@d3str0i3r]

a lot of that is economy of scale though, it's so good BECAUSE it's the most common, but because there aren't any competing designs at similar scale, we can't actually say this is the best system because nothing else has been given a genuine chance/trial

[@theworkshopwhisperer.5902]

Is this technically a monorail? If so it's definitely the most promising monorail I've seen from this early time.

[@laurencefraser]

Functionally but not exactly, by the looks of it. But it does provide basically all the same advantages with at least some of the disadvantages being reduced or eliminated... or would have if it had been electrified.

[@canadian_bread310]

The way this video was worded made it sound like such a tragic tale lol

[@christianpark5155]

This guy does that with pretty much every video (it's not necessarily a bad thing)

[@tommyvercetti5112]

Ordinary Sausage: "Well hey there folks and uh welcome back I guess..."

[@garryferrington811]

Amazing! I've never seen this before. And yes, it looks like a sci-fi concept from decades later. I could see this on the cover of a 1930's issue of "Amazing Stories." It's odd that such a brilliant inventor didn't see the value of electricity. Such a strange blind spot.

[@t-12productions15]

3:32 heey, that's my boi. Thanks for showing Grande bois, specifically 168

[@TankEngineMedia]

This sounded like it could’ve been a revolutionary concept! It is sad that that idea never got to be used to its full potential due to other forces

[@tr673]

Meigs' representative: we are in an age of progress. What was good 25 years ago isn't good now Meigs: none of this new-fangled electric! Steam power only

[@K-o-R]

I literally just saw this in the "fucked-up trains" section of Well There's Your Problem.

[@gonzoengineering4894]

Excellent taste

[@G3N0M3501DI3R]

All he had to do was electrify it...

[@Kalvinjj]

Yes. Incredibly thick headed decision of negating electric even tho his idea itself wouldn't have been affected by either propulsion system. If his revolutionary idea was the steam engine itself I would have understood it but no...

[@warrior3456_]

a brand new meaning to galloping sausage

[@lillywho]

This looks like something straight out of Disneyland!

[@TorridPrime217]

Everyone is getting in line to ride Disney's giant sausages

[@lillywho]

@@TorridPrime217 Not me. I'm married, thanks.

[@backonpro5679]

@@TorridPrime217😟😟😟

[@WardyLion]

Can’t help but wonder if the cylindrical metro trains in Fallout 4, which takes place in Boston, are a homage to this design.

[@MediumRareOpinions]

That thought occurred to me also

[@theinspector1023]

Very interesting. Thank you.

[@harrisonallen651]

Gordon’s worthy opponent

[@Anon_Omis]

Imagine if he wasn't so against electrifying it. We might have seen these used in some cities.

[@ajivins1]

The Sausage Express. Ooer!

[@cloudedarctrooper]

Quickly, somebody revive this patent!

[@CaptainLumpyDog]

I live in Boston. I want more snausage trains.

[@Colt45hatchback]

That would have been cool, being a city commuter train where mains electricity already existed, perfect. I can see his point in the further loss in energy transformation, between steam locomotive being all 'in house' and steam power station to generator to power lines to the rail network, but id have gone with electric just to make it easy to sell it to the city. If his end goal was to make long distance trains with that system, i can see his adversion to electric, but i guess he was not forward thinking enough to sell electric sets and the rail network to the city, then once established when there becomes a need for self powered locomotives, sell them steam powered locos aswell.

[@d3str0i3r]

electric just made sense for this design, they'd already be putting up poles to carry the power to homes, so why not put a monorail on those poles, it's truly sad

[@Colt45hatchback]

@@d3str0i3r well the existing poles for the electricity wouldnt have been sufficiently strong to hold that weight, but yeah if it was both a commuter train and mains electricity rollout simultaniously, sure

[@Dilbert-o5k]

Fascinating. I would like to point out that the third rail would be dynamically load bearing if not statically weight bearing. There would be fairly considerable forces on that centre rail in bends or changes pf elevation and braking. If he had gone electric he may have survived. I wonder if he had any connection to meigs field, the lake front airport in Chicago that the dodgy mayor just shut down overnight without consultation? With an unusual name like that i would expect there is some family connection

[@mkeratking]

This was exceedingly well-researched. Great job sourcing all those patents and old photos! From an engineers' perspective, the Meig Monorail was doomed by its central concept: A slender narrow beam would have been unacceptably unstable, especially around curves at any speed. If the test-track had been a little longer or had a full loop he probably would have seen this and called for bracing the track against neighboring buildings...and so on and so on. Simple designs either work the first time or become klodgey nightmares of fixes on fixes and Meigs' design looked a lot like the second case. Also, I'm fairly certain that the emergency de-coupler was Meigs admitting that the train might derail and the engineer had a responsibility to save other cars from being pulled off the track. Not a good look...

[@DennisLora2001]

Nice work on the video I really like it

[@madcat_UK]

I can't help but look at the 45 degree wheels and how well the flanges would hold out. The weight of the loco would still be straight down, so wouldn't this mean that the flanges would be taking the weight on their own? That aside, it is an interesting design and story. Thanks for highlighting this :)

[@scottthewaterwarrior]

It looks like the flanges aren't the traditional kind, but rather the whole wheel has an inverted V shape. IDK how much difference that would make.

[@TheStickCollector]

I suppose i should want to make one of these

[@daviszdirector]

this Meigs dude is such a silly "oh yeh, the current way locomotives run is outdated, it needs to change to my design!" "hey what if you made it electric? be alot better that way" "ELETRIC!? WHAT A LOAD OF HOO HA! STEAM IS WAY BETTER, THESE ELETRICS WONT LAST!" bro would be fuming if he saw the current state of railways

[@matthewmurren2210]

Ah so thats why the subway train in fallout 4 looks so familiar

[@uncipaws7643]

This system has the same problem as a lot of monorail and maglev systems: Turnouts will be very complicated, so it's not easy to build a system with many lines branching out. Also this engineer holding on to steam power reminds me of some people fighting to keep the combustion engine in vehicles nowadays .... It was clear back then and it is still clear today: The future is electric, as it has been for well over a hundred years.

[@d3str0i3r]

i love that that attitude is what killed it on both sides of the situation, his idea died because he stubbornly refused to let go of steam, and because investors and other companies stubbornly refused to update traditional rail, everyone resisted change so we got no where

[@kullre_gun]

I can't be the only one who thinks that this looks like the satisfactory monorail

[@brenlc1412]

Duck called me a galloping sausage!

[@xtremespotzu]

Rusty Red Scrap Iron!

[@robrice7246]

I'm old square wheels.

[@xtremespotzu]

@@robrice7246 Well, Duck?

[@brenlc1412]

@@xtremespotzu I only wish Sir, I had thought of those names myself. If the dome fits!

[@Wolfric_Rogers]

"Ha! Ahem!"

[@raydunakin]

The Oscar Meyer Wienermobile could have been a train!

[@DC4260Productions]

That thing looks too absurd to be real. It that sense, it's reminiscent of the Brighton & Rottingdean Seashore Electric Railway.

[@patrickmartin3322]

This is just a straddle beam monorail, but older

[@maxtransit]

I feel this invention could've revolutionized how rail-transit could be built in cities. I suspect it wouldn't work well at high speeds, but it definitely would help in many cities. Maybe at some point some city will decide to take on this invention as it does show some promise.

[@maxtransit]

Also thank you for another wonderful video!

[@1_railfan]

Well on the subject of "Ahead of the time", Meigs sausage express did seem like the one of the pre-monorails that we know today. Too bad Monorails had their share of flaws. Oh well, no one's perfect.

[@laurencefraser]

Interestingly, it seems to actually avoid or reduce some of the bigger flaws in the standard monorail. Too bad about the unwillingness to electrify. It arguably Wasn't really ahead of it's time so much as at exactly the Right time... and then failed due to poor decision making.

[@Duck64906]

Galloping sausages

[@FunAngelo2005]

This was made in the 1800s BTW

[@Wolfric_Rogers]

"Duck called me a GALLOPING SAUSAGE!"

[@michaelt9639]

That's what I love about the s160s they lasted longer then they was ment too there is one at the kighley and worth valley railway and it's nick name is big jim

[@GavinMarioGanahsen-zn1uh]

I have a request mr train of thought, my brithday is next week and I would like u to talk about the CRR of America , I want to know what happened and also talk about 482 mountain built by Baldwin for Frisco railroad pls

[@mattevans4377]

History is littered with failed Gadgetbahns, and yet Silicon valley still keeps pushing them.....

[@koppadasao]

The Sausage Express dives into tunnels at speed But when the work is done, and load ejected, it limps out again, back to where it belongs

[@mrnorthernspitfire3067]

Am I the only one who is reminded of the monorail episode of The Simpsons?

[@FuelFire]

Now make a video about the Bradford & Foster Brook monorail

[@darylcheshire1618]

looks appealing, an EMU design would have been good. I wonder if the sausage design would have been more efficient compared to the conventional wooden cars. However the sausage design would have been used today if it was proven to be effective.

[@laurencefraser]

Well, the lack of pointy bits that can clip other things on corners and such probably helped, but it's primarily a product of being built around a single rail. How cylindrical trains are seems to be largely a product of how wide their track is compared to their loading gauge.

[@andrewmazzarini2742]

So, I guess the concept of a "gadgetbahn" is older than most of us realize

[@BadByte]

Monorail !

[@superstepno835]

This monorail is in my book

[@connorjohnson7834]

It's an oddly shaped fell railway

[@Lucius_Chiaraviglio]

That switch design doesn't look very smooth (all monorail and monorail-related designs are going to have problems with switching), and using cheaper materials for the guide rail sounds like an invitation to disaster once speeds get up. And that's before you get to his crazy objection to electricity . . . .

[@therealdatenshi]

everything needs to be a thomas the tank engine reference

[@lukechristmas3951]

Especially the comments section.

[@Straswa]

Fascinating concept, too bad it didn't pan out.

[@steam1303]

Ay man gimme a sausage train with a medium dr.pepper

[@alicehodges9964]

The Steam Engine Looks Awesome It Is Amazing

[@Austriantrainguy]

ENGERTH-LOCO

[@templar_1138]

And over a hundred years later, Massachusetts would be the first state in the US to legalize marriage equality. I know it's low-hanging fruit, but that Sausage Express line was your fault.

[@gravitrax6478]

all because he didn't like electric trains...

[@fredphipps9452]

There's no reason why Meig's ideas couldn't be developed by someone else as adapted to electricity, steam certainly no longer remaining an option in our present age of global greenhouse admission alarm

[@danielbedrossian5986]

Toobad, it's pretty much a sadle train / mono rail, and a top heavy one, not the less, with all the troubles that even these days monorail have. I doupth, much would have changed even if he gave in to the electrification.

[@yeoldeseawitch]

Americans trying not to have the stupidest looking trains (impossible):

[@lemmyspeaks]

Oscar Meyer LocoWiener

[@Vtarngpb]

Sausages, cucumbers, eggplants/courgettes, ________… minor details 😂

[@ArtyI]

Is this the inspiration behind the Monorail episode in the Simpsons?

[@ScourgePrimal]

Imagine if NYC Subways looked like sausages, they have to look like long beer cans Q3Q

[@Electrolux219]

Sosig

[@jimmypetrock]

:)

[@Cooked154]

Its Gordon in Real life

[@gordonthebigenginenwr4]

Eee

[@bostonrailfan2427]

almoat implies that these were seriously considered…these were never going to be considered at all: it was more egotistical demonstration than anything

[@s.s.amazon5152]

first i think?

[@F4wk3s]

Maybe

[@AmadeusJohansson-gf4ge]

under three minutes group