Crystal Palace pneumatic railway

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The Crystal Palace pneumatic railway (also known as the Crystal Palace atmospheric railway) was an experimental atmospheric railway constructed near The Crystal Palace in around 1864.

Contents 1 History 2 Hauntings 3 See also 4 References

[edit] History

The railway was designed by Thomas Webster Rammell, who had previously built an atmospheric railway for the General Post Office to convey letters along vacuum-driven tunnels in large wagons. A similar principle was applied to this railway, by which a carriage, which had been fitted with a large collar of bristles, would be sucked along an airtight tunnel by a large fan, some 22ft in diameter, that was probably powered by a steam engine.^[1][2]

The tunnel ran for 600 yards between Sydenham and Penge, and had to negotiate a difficult bend along the line. Tickets cost sixpence each.^[3] It is unclear what became of the line, as records do not state when it ceased to operate, although it has been suggested that Rammell had originally constructed the small line as a test for a larger atmospheric railway that was to run between Waterloo and Whitehall.^[4]

[edit] Hauntings

It has been rumoured that the site of the atmospheric railway is haunted, which was a popular urban legend of the 1930s partially connected with stories surrounding Crystal Palace railway station. In 1978, a woman claimed to have found the tunnel and within it saw an old railway carriage filled with skeletons in Victorian outfits.^[5] The tunnel was not found, and some believed that the tunnel may have been destroyed by construction work for the Festival of Empire celebrations in 1911.^[6]

[edit] See also

• Beach Pneumatic Transit - A similar atmospheric railway operating in America

[edit] References