Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.Username: jd755Date: 2019-03-25 15:22:20Reaction Score: 8
Was going to do a separate post on this chap but frankly there is next to nothing out there which is very odd given the thing he is supposed to have invented which went throughout the world in the 1800's, so putting it here instead which is on the post which led me to him.
I was looking into these streetcars/trams from the point of view of the logistics and the infrastructure which is where I feel 'a reality' is found. So looking first for where the manufacturers of the streetcars came from was the start, hard to get beyond reference to real world books so switched tack to seeing if New Orleans bought Washington's horse drawn cars which was a dead end as these cars were run by private companies over most of the 1800's but a name came up Alphonse Loubat.
And there as the same tale appearing again and again of how a Parisian
(aren't all Frenchmen of note linked in some way to flipping Paris! It's a huge splodge of land is France outside of Paris and is seemingly devoid of noteworthy people) 'merchant' went to New York and planted a vineyard, made a fortune, nipped back over to Paris, invented a U shaped flush fit street car rail put it into use in Paris making a fortune , crossed back over the Atlantic and in New York put his U rail into service on New York's Streetcar lines
(wonder what they were using for rails before he got there?), wrote a book about Vines and Wine then snuffed it back in France.
Sorry to be so sarcastic about this tale but it really reads to me like total rubbish.
The only other site I could find is
this one in French which was celebrating Aphonse's 120th Birthday. Which offers a slightly different take but still makes little sense, to me.
Alphonse Loubat was born June 15, 1799 in Sainte-Livrade (Lot-et-Garonne) and is the French inventor of the U-rail used by the tram.
The rails are long profiled steel bars, which are placed end to end to form a railroad.
The tram (or tram) is a form of urban or interurban transit on railways.
Adult, Alphonse LOUBAT, goes to the United States where he made a fortune by participating in the development of the vine.
In New York he is interested in the beginnings of the horse-drawn streetcar, the first line of which entered into service in 1832. Returning to France, in 1852 he filed a patent on a U-shaped rail to completely retract the rail in the roadway. In 1853 he was allowed to build a first test line of 2 km in Paris, on the Cours de la Reine.
The streetcar of the time is a vehicle running on rails but pulled by horses. It carries 48 travelers: 18 inside, 24 on the imperial and 6 standing on the platform reserved for smokers. Faced with the success, a thirty-year concession was signed in 1854 for the construction of a line between Vincennes and Pont de Sèvres through the Place de la Concorde. But in 1855, Baron Haussman forced the lines managing the Parisian omnibus and the new tramway to regroup. Alphonse Loubat must give up his business; In exchange, he receives shares in the new company, the CGO (Compagnie Générale des Omnibus).
Alphonse LOUBAT died on September 10, 1866, in Ville-d'Avray, at the age of 67 years.
Streetcar rails and wine seem a very dubious pair to find in the same bed.
History being made up on the fly or a grain of truth turned into a pound of bullshit or all completely true?
The predecessor to the streetcar rail being introduced were apparently horse drawn omnibuses which arose out of stagecoaches. Quite where the idea of running such things on a rail that didn't exist comes from doesn't seem to be discussed. Railway rails existed but they were all above ground on sleepers so no use at all for a pedestrian, horse and cart street.
Also Alphonses rail was made of mild steel and it couldn't handle the heavier streetcars let alone the steam powered streetcars or the electric bogie powered streetcar as the weight of these machines distorted the rail. It was only when a hardened steel came into being was the switch from horse to electric or sometimes steam could go ahead.
The thing for me with etheric electricity being used is what delivers the power as in what turns it from ether into motion?
Step outside of heavy electric motors and what device is there/was there that could deliver this power.
The greatest red light for me with these horse drawn street cars seemingly competing with the electric street car is the horse and cart was kicking about for centuries as the only means of moving stuff and people about on land. Then in the space of less than 100 year horses were being replaced by steam/electric/petrol driven machines not to mention steel rails and that 'rush' of change has now settled into the pattern we see today.
So obsolete tech used for thousands of years then a flash of inspiration and now obsolete for decades tech littering the place.
