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MUSEUMS THAT DISPLAY AIR CARS
and related items
- At the Empire Gold Mine State
Park in Grass Valley, California, a simple compressed air locomotive
(see above picture) resides on the grounds. It looks like an
off-the-shelf four-cylinder reversible piston air motor bolted to
a chassis along with a large iron air reservoir. Compressor
entrepreneur Edward A. Rix also custom-designed pneumatic locomotives
for this famous mine and for the North Star Gold Mine on the next hill
over, where the largest Pelton water wheel ever made operated a 1000
horsepower compressor that provided air for both mines.
- There is an H. K. Porter
compressed air locomotive at Mel Ott Park on the Belle Chase Highway in
Gretna, Louisiana. It belongs to the Louisiana Railway Heritage
Trust. For photos and more information, go to the internet sites
at pernet.net/~james1/texas/louisiana.html and
railroadmuseum.org/southernhistory. There is also an excellent
photo at steamlocomotive.info/vlocomotive.cfm?Display=3899.
- A Newcomen Society website
reference mentions a compressed air locomotive that is part of a
collection maintained by a group whose holdings include the Maastricht
to Aachen railway line at Simpelveld, the Netherlands. The website
doesn't give the name of the group or its museum. The Newcomen
Society is a scientific organization that has been around forever.
Their website reference is at newcomen.com/eindhoven.htm
- Frankfurter Feldbahnmuseum (Steam
train museum in Frankfurter, Germany): the collection includes over two
dozen locomotives of various types as well as one compressed air
locomotive. For more details, see the website at
feldbahn-ffm.de. See photos above and below, courtesy
Rolf-Dieter Reichert, secretary and webmaster,
Frankfurter
Feldbahnmuseum.
- I have heard rumors that a
pneumatic auto is or was on display at the Ford Motors museum in
Detroit.
- Air car inventor Terry Miller,
who was a retired aircraft electrician and taught at Spartan Technical
School in Tulsa, Oklahoma, coached a high school physics class in
Buffalo, Oklahoma in building an air car much like his Air Car One.
A race between the two cars was won by the high school class, which was
taught by Gwen Cook. The car was given to a museum in Kansas.
- Check coal-mining districts of
France, Germany, Belgium, Pennsylvania and West Virginia for surviving
examples of the most efficient air engines ever sold commercially, the
compound interheated air engines invented by C. B. Hodges. Please
let me know if you turn anything up.
- A company named Marklin is
selling a Z Gauge DRG class V 120 Passenger Train model replica of a
German State Railroad Company diesel-pneumatic compressed air
locomotive. For more details
go to marklin.com/newprod/2003/z_01.html.
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Along Highway #3 in Coleman, Alberta, there is a
compressed air locomotive that has been made into "the world's largest
piggy bank." http://www1.travelalberta.com/content/albertafacts/Facts_unusual.cfm.
-
 The North Star Mining Museum in
Grass Valley, California houses a 30-foot diameter water wheel that was
used to operate a 1000 horsepower compressor. This Pelton water
wheel was the largest in the world. Mr. Pelton lived just a few
miles away in Camptonville, and the Miner's
Foundry where the Pelton
wheels were manufactured is still in existence as a museum and
convention center in Nevada City, a few miles from the other museums.
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