Well, You Start Here, and Then Go There, And Then...

I have blogged before about how one thing leads to another. Train of thought- pun intended. Well; I'm doing it again.

Today I was reading a legal description for a piece of property in Fayette County Kentucky, and part of the property ran along side of the tracks for the CNO & TP Railroad.

The what? I asked myself. What was the CNO & TP Railroad? Well, It is the Cincinnati- New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railroad. Formed in 1869, it is wholly owned by the City of Cincinnati. The only intercity railroad owned by a municipality. Ain't that a kick in the head? There is a lot more information at the link, But apparently the line has a certain amount of notoriety to rail buffs, or as they are sometimes called, Foamers. That is an interesting story in its own. Do an internet search for Railroad Foamer video.

But, I digress.

I was doing a little more searching, looking for more info on the CNO & TP RR (TP; Considering Cincinnati's Procter & Gamble, a TP railroad kinda makes sense) I found another page, NKY Images; full of hundreds of old pictures, including some on the now familiar CNO&TP RR.

Including one old newspaper article about a car on the railroad tracks of the CNO&TP. The things you can find on the internets!

What is really interesting about this article is that it talks about the horseless carriage killing the horse, and now it's setting its sites on the Iron Horse. That was truer that anybody in 1924 knew, I would suspect. Not that personal cars would soon rule the railroads, but there is a technology hidden under the hood of this vehicle that is 80 years ahead of its time for cars, and 30 years to early for the railroads. This thing is a hybrid.

And, it wasn't the first one. There is a hybrid manufacturer even older. Back to my old friend Jay Leno's Garage, and his Owen Magnetic.

This was the technology that did kill the Iron Horse Steam Locomotive. All modern locomotives are diesel electrics; the drive wheels are each driven by an electric motor, and the electricity is created by a diesel powered generator; just like in a modern hybrid, and in our early iron wheel automobile.

Another thing too, while I am on this newspaper article. I love the way it is written. If newspapers were written like this today they might still be making money. Which reminds me; the money line in the article: 'by an over enthusiastic devotee of Bacchus'.

The author used this line, knowing that most, if not all, of his readers would know who Bacchus was. I'll bet you could read this article to an honors English class in any high schools and they would not be able understand a significant portion of it.

Yet in 1924, this was puff piece.

Yeah; we have come a long way.