l these designs may seem rather eccentric to twentieth-first century eyes, they were all serious attempts to improve on contemporary technology and tackle the many technological challenges that the railways faced. They show that for every successful idea that is used on the railways today, many more ideas were discarded and left by the wayside.
Do you have any other favourite examples of weird and wonderful railway engineering? You can tweet Tania and Jack via their joint twitter account.
All of these documents and further information about them can be accessed through Search Engine, our library and archives service.