The Great One.

This is it. The great disaster. Trains and bridges. Often a bad mix. Thank God they don't take elevators. This wreck is actually called The Great Train Wreck of 1856 (like there were more, less worthy wrecks in 1856). It was also called "The Camp Hill Disaster" and the "The Picnic Train Tragedy".

The wreck occured between Camp Hill and Fort Washington, Pennsylvania on July 17th. Two trains were on the same track heading towards each other. The math just won't work here. The first train, the "Picnic Special" was a North Pennsylvania Railroad special. It was filled with children on a day excursion to a Sunday School picnic among the estimated 1500 (!) passengers. It was running late. The engine, Shakamaxon, was a bit weezy and lost pressure frequently, slowing it down more.

They were on their way to Shaeff's Woods, near Wissahickon station. Okay, now the other train, the Aramingo, was also at this station waiting on a siding for them to pass. Two things now happened that sealed the deal. First, the conductor didn't signal it's late arrival, and second, the waiting train's engineer assumed the oncoming train was on schedule, not a special for the day outing. The trains would usually wait 15 extra minutes before heading onto the main track. But because the picnic traing was on no time schedule, the 15 minutes was meaningless.

So the picnicers, now straining to make up time and going as fast as they could, were heading straight at the Aramingo. They collided at 6:18am. Both boilers exploded on impact, shaking windows for miles. Cars derailed, and fire spread quickly, as was common then with the wooden passenger cars and burning coal.

In all about 60 people perished and 100 were injured. Exact numbers were hard to establish as some bodies simply dissappeared in the intense fire.

Thirst-day. Gypsey!

It's a slow start tonight. Yikes. History Television gets it going at 9pm with 1917: The Missing, "Genealogists, historians, and forensic biologists discover the identity of the first Canadian WWI soldier using DNA science. "

At 1am, A&E has More Great Escapes of World War II.

The History Channel saves us tonight with a not bad menu. Two back to back Ganglands' (8 and 9pm) Lords of the Holy City and One Blood. And at 11 the continuation of The History of Sex: From Don Juan to Queen Victoria.

Kinda puny.

Wenzdai

Care for a little conspiracy? The Manchurian Candidate is on at 7:15 on TCM. Then they have a bunch of so-so Frank Sinatra movies then Cast a Giant Shadow at 1:15am.

At 8 History Television has The Re-Inventors: Roman Crane, then a bunch of not really history related shows then Manhunt:Colonel Adolf Eichmann at 1:30am.

The History Channel a lot of shows about mega or monster something all evening then The History of Sex: The Eastern World at 11pm.

Odd programming for the middle of the week.

Keep on rolling . . .

Thelma Keane died last Friday. She was the husband of Bill Keane, creator of the Family Circus comic strip. The strip has been in continuous syndication since the early 60's and appears in over 1500 newspapers worldwide.

The model and inspiration for the mom in the one panel strip, she was recognized on the street in the early days, so close was the cartoon to the real person.

Bill and Thelma met during WWII in Australia. They worked in the same war bonds office, she was a secretary and he was a promo artist for the American military. They married in 1948 and returned with Bill to the states.

Thelma was a big part of the Family Circus's success on another front too: she was a shrewd business manager, keeping the business of the daily strip in well organized hands.

Originally called the Family Circle (hence the round panel) they changed the name because of objections from that other famous Family Circle, the magazine. Bill Keane still draws the cartoon today at age 85 with the help of his son Jeff.

tooseday. tom servo

Starting kinda late tonight. TCM has Little Big Man at 8pm and the tail end of Voyage of the Damned which started at 5pm. At 10:30 they have spy thriller Three Days of the Condor.

History Television has Digging for the Truth: Kings of the Stone Age, also at 8. Right after at 9 is Digging Up the Trenches, archaeologists excavate WWI trenches.

At 2am CBC has an excellent R&B retrospective called Only the Strong Survive, great clips of some of the giants of early soul.

The History Channel has a bunch o view worthy TV starting at 9 with Mega Disasters: Noah's Great Flood (yeah that's one of the big ones, definitely "mega"), then at 10 another in the Ancient Discoveries series: Ancient Super Navies, and at 11 The History of Sex: Ancient Civilizations.

Toodle oo.

Monday night. Macleod!

TCM starts it off right with the 1975 thriller The Eagle Has Landed, and right after at 9:15 they have Glory, the story of an all black civil war regiment. Then at 11:30 Men of the Fighting Lady, and then a few other fictionalized films from WWII if you hanker to stay up all night.

At 8pm on History Television they have Dogfights: The Bloodiest Day and Rome: A Necessary Fiction at 9.

PBS has American Experience: Truman. Not a huge fan of this series, but it's thick.

Also at 9 on AMC is Steve McQueen in The Sand Pebbles, hmmm, which one . . .

Is there a doctor in the house?

On this day in 1859 Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle was born. He came from an artistic family (at least on his fathers side) where his dad and uncles were noted artists of the day. Richard Doyle was a quite famous illustrator frequently appearing in Punch magazine. Arthur didn't show a leaning towards art so he went to college and became a doctor and by 1882 founded a practice with a school chum. This went sour pretty quick so he left a formed his own practice.

Business was slow for a new doctor in the town of Southsea so he started writing stories to fill the time. In 1887, A Study in Scarlet, the first Sherlocke Holmes short story came out in Beeton's Christmas Annual.

A few years later he became an eye doctor and moved to London in 1891. He set up shop and sat and waited but no patients came. Ever. His apparent lack of marketing skills in his medical practices was the book worlds gift. He wrote more and more Sherlocke Holmes stories.

But Doyle longed for a reputation as a serious author and to spend more time on his historical writing. He killed his hero off, then brought him back, but his heart was already elsewhere.

He had many sides, but a common outlet was his writing. For example his passionate defence of England in The War in South Africa: Its Cause and Conduct and The Great Boer War, his craving for justice in The Crime of the Congo.

After the death of his first wife in 1906, and up to the end of WWI, Doyle suffered through the deaths of many people close to him. His son, brother and 2 nephews died in a short span following the war. He soon turned to spiritualism and became an advocate of the pseudoscience of its proof of life beyond the grave. In 1921 he wrote The Coming of the Fairies about the Cottingley Fairies photographs.

Thursday. Crowwwww

As just about no other channels even touch history stuff of any kind, and many specialty channels have "other" kinda related shows like big foot's wife's necklace found, or how they made the world's tallest fence post, I gotta rely on TV haunts like History Television. It's all good. At 8 they have Total War: Battle of Verdun. At 1am they another in the series: The Somme and then right after Japan's War in Colour: Enduring the Unendurable.

So without History Television tonight you would be forced to watch shows about tow trucks. There.

The Wreck of the Lake Shore & Michigan Railroad's New York Express Buffalo Bound, at Angola, New York, in 1867, commonly known as the "Angola Horror" was an example of how fairly high technology (a steam locomotive pulling a train of cars) combined with some old world habits (cars heated with wood stoves and separate overcrowded"immigrant" cars) that resulted in a shit storm of truly horrendous magnitude. I generally take a good amount of time to poke fun at stupidity, shortsightedness and just plain weird, like cast iron bridges or 38 inch bore cannons, but this is just a sad sad tale.

On the fateful day the New York Express was running way late and had been trying to make up for time. Running hard and avoiding any unnecessary stops it was flying (for then anyways) as it came upon Angola, New York. Ahead was a small creek, the Big Sister over which there was a trestle bridge with a 160 foot span. Just short of Angola the train flew over a frog (that's railway talk for the exact spot two rails cross, for all you land lubbers) and the last wheel on the last truck of the whole train jumped the track when it hit the frog.

The rear car derailed right away and as the train dragged this over the ties as it approached the bridge. The next car in line from the rear derailed and hell then, just broke loose too. The high speed, which made the train almost unstoppable and the crowded cars each with 2 untethered wood stoves was truly awful. Almost fifty lives were lost.

Wednesday. You dago dodo.

It's a fine day for Nazi hunting. PBS has Secrets of the Dead: The Hunt for Nazi Scientists, about the rush at the end of WWII to find as many Nazi scientists as possible before they fell into Russian hands. At 8pm.

And thats all we will be doing too. Slimmest list in a while. Go mow the lawn before it gets dark maybe.

Aw, come on.

Found this on CNN. Good Lord, wonder if Toyota will be buying any of these little guys any time soon? http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/05/20/geo.metro/index.html

Tuesday, March 20. Naughty moose.

History Television starts off with Digging for the Truth: God's Gold, Part 2 at 8pm. At 9pm they have The Immortal Beaver, (about the AIRPLANE, not the rodent). Stay up late and catch Battlefield Detectives: The Six Day War at 2am and the Battle of Britain at 3am, in case you have the day off tomorrow.

I'm digging real hard too, trying to find some decent shows, sheesh.

And if you really fancy a treat, though nothing to do with history, TMC has Harvey at 2:15am. Looks like they had an evening of Jimmy Stewart classics. If you need a helping of aw shucks.

The other September 11.

On September 11, 1297, during the First War of Scottish Independence, the Scottish armies of Andrew de Moray and William Wallace met and defeated the English under the command of John de Warenne and Hugh de Cressingham at The Battle of Stirling Bridge.

I came across this little piece of historical bridge history whilst looking up train wrecks. For now, this story, though trainless, is cooler.

Stirling bridge crossed the river Forth near, not surprisingly, a town called Stirling. The English, coming off a victory at the Battle of Dunbar, took the Scottish for granted here. Now the Brits could have easily flanked the Scottish by putting together an attack force to cross the river downstream where it was shallower and would allow reasonable passage. The oddball truth of why it didn't happen is that Cressingham was England's treasurer in Scotland and didn't want the extra expense. He figured they could could just blast over the bridge. Lesson: Never let your accountants run the battle.

The Scottish waited until as many English were over the bridge that they could handle and basically separated them form the bridge, blocked off the bridge (which was easy because it was only 2 horses wide) and hacked them to pieces. They had carefully sawed through supporting timbers (a la Wile E Coyote) and when the bridge was crowded with English soldiers the signal was given and Scottish saboteurs knocked down the final timbers and the bridge went down. After that, whoever tried to cross was on their own. One brave Welshman, Marmaduke Tweng, did cross and as the battle was lost ordered the bridges final destruction and high tailed it South.

I'll see if I can find a war and a train and a bridge next time.

Thursday. This, smack on the head.

If you hurry you can catch The Lusitania: Murder on the Atlantic on Discovery Channel, just started at 6.

Here's a doc you won't see every day, good on Knowledge Network for showing this:Lai Man Wai, The Father of Chinese Cinema. On at 9pm.

History Television has a few shows on tonight about Vimy, this one seems to be the better of the 2: Vimy Underground. At 9pm. If you can, and don't have to work tomorrow, stay up for Japan's War in Colour at 2am.

Here's a weird old one: The Boys From Brazil. TCM has it at 11:15.

The History Channel has a few goodies too. At 8pm it's Ancient Discoveries: Ancient New York, at 9 they have Gangland: Mongol Nation. This is part of an entire series on brutal gangs throughout history. Neat. Then at 11 History's Mysteries: Devils Island.

Big night.

Wednesday. Get the pigeons out of the cistern.

Tonight's viewing doesn't get underway till 8pm with PBS and Secrets of the Dead: Sinking Atlantis, the rise and fall of the Minoan civilization on the island of Crete.

TCM has a pile of Frank Sinatra flicks all evening long, some smart and sophisticated, some duds. Have a look.

At 9pm, History Television has Jerusalem 1948: A War From Three Sides, a look at when the British moved out of Palestine.

The History Channel has some pretty good stuff on too, starting at 8 with Modern Marvels: Mad Electricity, a portrait of Nikola Tesla. Then at 9 it's MonsterQuest: America's Loch Ness Monster, and then to wrap at 10pm they have on Deep Sea Detectives: Loch Ness (not the other one, the real one).

Good for now, time for bed.

Best thing since the frisbee.

Invented in 1941 by Swiss engineer George de Mestral, Velcro hook and loop fasteners officially turn 50 today. It took a few years (over 15 actually) to work out the idea and convince people of the advantages of the weird little strips that sounded like fabric tearing when you pulled them apart.

So the story goes, de Mestral became curious over how burrs stayed stuck to his trousers and dogs fur after a walk. He has a close look at them and discovered the "hook" part of the invention: thousands of tiny little hooks that latched onto fabric.

The hard part, and it was monstrously hard, was developing the two parts system out of commercial fabrics, AND, figuring out a way to mass produce the stuff. He toiled over a decade on this. He got it squared away and by 1951 he has his first patent. He patented it in over a dozen countries (expecting a huge demand) and set up shop in 8 countries. He settled on Manchester, New Hampshire as his centre of operations and beginning in 1958 started to introduce the world to Velcro.

It didn't fly off the shelves at the start, people just weren't ready to trade buttons for Velcro. But the infant space industry found that this was the perfect fastener for it's new space suits. They just couldn't pass this kind marketing up.

Tuesday. Duck a l'orange.

Things are starting later than usual tonight. History television has Digging for the Truth: God's Gold, Part 1 at 8 o'clock. And if you can stay up till 2am they have Battlefield Detectives
Siege of Masada.

The History Channel serves up a heaping helping of hell on earth starting at 8pm with back to back Mega Disasters: Super Swarms (locusts) and Mega Tsunami. But wait, there's more! At 9pm they have Siberian Apocalypse, about the Tunguska "event".

I know this is a hard movie to pass up! The Atomic Submarine, a 1959 stinker that has little to do with atomic powered anything, but a good waste of time. And it's got one eyed aliens.

phew.

Monday May 12. My God your ugly.

Starting at 8pm, History Television has two excellent series on with Dogfights: No Room for Error and then Rome: Philippi. Not a bad start to the night.

At 9pm, PBS has American Experience: FDR: The Center of the World; Fear Itself. Kinda long at 2 hours, but there is a lot to tackle.

If you can hack it, AMC has The Blue Max. Hmmm, George Peppard and Ursula Andress. Oh, it's at 10:30pm.

The History Channel serves up a pretty good evening starting at 9pm with Cities of the Underworld: Prophesies from Below. A look into Jerusalem's hidden underground. The it's Ancient Discoveries: Ancient Death Machines. Family fun. And then to warp up at 11 they have Modern Marvels: The Colosseum.

Pretty good start to the week (cept for the Blue Max thingie).

He was here a minute ago.

Harold Holt, prime Minister of Australia from January 26, 1966 till December 17, 1967, when he seemingly walked into the surf at Cheviot Beach and disappeared.

Not many heads of state do that you know. Many have been run from office, some shot at (successfully and not) and some have TRIED to hide, but Harold is the only one to simply go away.

Holt had only been in office a little less than a year, however his political career has spanned almost 30 years, with him holding cabinet posts for most of that time.

His disappearance sparked many a wacky theory including several having him as a spy for either or both China and the USSR. He was supposed to have swam out to a waiting submarine. Or faked his death to run off with another woman. Or abducted by UFO's. All sound plausible.

In the way life sticks one final joke your way, and you just can't figure out why, a swimming pool was named in his honour after his death, the Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Centre.

May 7, 2008. I think a piece of your brain fell out.

Hmmm. AMC has The Boston Strangler from 1968 with Tony Curtis and Henry Fonda.

PBS has Secrets of the Dead: Doping for Gold. Unusual story of 1970's era East German athletes using potentially risky performance enhancing drugs.

Also at 9, History Television has Ultimate Engineering: Chartres, an in depth look at the construction of this amazing building.

And, at 9 as well, the History Channel has MonsterQuest: Giganto, the Real King Kong. Sounds like it should be on TreeHouse TV.

TMC has an interesting 60's war flick called None but the Brave at 11:30pm.

That's the works for tonight.

Tuesday. It's not a hamster, it's a rat.

TMC has a jungle theme going on starting at 6pm with the original Tarzan, the Ape Man. It just goes on from there.

Not to be outdone, AMC has a gritty WWII vibe going on with The Great Escape at 6pm and Guns of Navarone right after.

At 8pm, History Television has Digging for the Truth, The Hunley: New Revelations. Stay up late if you can and catch Battlefield Detectives: Battle of the Bulge at 2am.

Seems that the History Channel's theme is astoundingly huge disasters (way better that some old submarine sinking). Starting at 8pm they have back to back Mega Disasters with Comet Catastrophe and Hypercane. Sounds like an MST 3000 title. Oops.

That's the works readers. Have fun.

When will they learn?

A few weeks ago I talked about a cast iron railway bridge failing. Well here's another one. Christ, don't they get it? On June 11, 1860 an empty coal train running between Leamington Spa and Kenilworth (yeah really) broke through the bridge deck and thence through the whole she-bang into the road below. The only 2 fatalities were the engineer and brakeman, crushed at the bottom of the pile. Apparently the empty cars piled up to the height of the bridge.

This was a hybrid bridge, that is to say, it had wooden trestles supported on cast iron girders. This bridge actually had been repaired when cracks were spotted in the cast iron. And to heap more crap onto the pile, cast iron bridges were known to be prone to failure, and, quite honestly, they made shitty bridges. Engineers had the Dee bridge collapse nearly 15 years earlier to learn from.

I could end this now but it took 3 MORE catastrophic failures and almost 20 more years before someone cried stop. When engineers fanned out across the country to see what the state of cast iron rail bridges were they found several thousand more. A massive series of upgrades and replacement ensued.

It's monday. He's a hamster, not a rat.

Ho boy, this starting out to be a weird little night. TMC has The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp at 6:30. At 1:15am they have Pursuit of the Graf Spee.

History Television has Dogfights: Desert Aces at 8pm. Things are looking up. And Rome
Heroes of the Republic at midnight.

The History Channel has Ancient Discoveries: Ancient Chinese Super Ships at 10pm and Cities of the Underworld: 08 New York at 11.

I was worried for as minute there.