HO Stephenson's Rocket

I don't recall ever seeing a brass HO Rocket. I know Triang-Hornby built a plastic version in the 60's and 70's..... the only brass one I know of was O

Steve

Thanks, I'll pass the info along.

Andy

m> I don't recall ever seeing a brass HO Rocket. I know Triang-Hornby built a

On a side note... I always kind of wondered how Stephenson chose the name "Rocket" for his ground-breaking locomotive. In the late 1820s, the popular conception of "rocket" (at least as we usually think of it nowadays) wasn't around, and about the only use of the word I can think of would be in reference to Chinese fireworks... or did Stephenson take the word "rocket" from some other source?

A certain Mr. Congreve - and Francis Scott Key - beg to differ with you, sirrah.

Actually it was.

Congreve's rockets were exploding firework rockets aimed at targets during war. They weren't particularly accurate but could be used against large targets like wooden forts. It's where the rockets' red glare" line in the US National Anthem comes from.

salvé Mark Mathu skrev i diskussionsgruppsmeddelandet:nSK4e.3564$ snipped-for-privacy@tornado.rdc-kc.rr.com...

Rockets were recognised as the fastest man made devices, and rockets as used in warfare had been around for atleast a thousand years first the chinese used rocket powered arrows as did the arabs later similar devices larger and more powerful) were used i europe, as far as I know Rockets have been used in just about every european war since c 1300AD, not including the colonial war :) Beowulf

Rockets were used for signalling by the R.N. in Stephenson's time and well before, as well as being used as projectiles as others have written. Regards, Bill.

A guy know as Woo Mong Dung the Wangster was trying to make the elixir of eternal life and a cure for warts about 1200 BC by mixing together various ingredients in his medicine cabinet along with some things he found outside on his morning walks. He succeeded in making gun power. All anyone knew at the time was that one day his hut blew up and burned in a huge flash of brilliant fire and smoke and he was never seen again. About 900 BC a couple of alchemy enthusiasts followed up on his work after discovering the memoirs of a local fellow who had often dropped by the Wangsters hut with some egg rolls and tea to talk about the latest concoctions. They succeed at making gun power as well and promptly blew themselves up but were only horribly burned and injured. Naturally they mixed up another batch as soon as possible. Realizing the financial potential of something that might blow up on command they began marketing Wangs Volcanomatic Power in convenient lethal sized packages along with hand thrown Shrapnel Flowers. Down the road there were many military contracts for the extremely popular WMD Wangster Company's Bamboo Tube Instant Archer. If you were a war lord back in those days you just loved these things especially in the regimental size package unless you of course you were a Mongolian. So China usually gets the nod for the discovery of gun power and rockets. However there are ancient Greek writings that indicate the Hindu's may have used gunpowder rockets to propel arrows at Alexander's troops. They were ineffective but lots of fun to watch. This allegedly disturbed the Hindus a great deal who thought for sure they would terrorize the Greeks. But then how could they have know that almost all ancient Greeks were mad and that the terror effect of flaming rocket propelled devices only worked on normal people and Tibetans. There are even some references that could lead one to believe that the Hindus might have been using gun power to blast each other to kingdom come long before Alexander showed up in a rotten mood after having to put up with very bad roads, lousy service and dirty bathrooms at the caravan stops in what is now know as Afghanistan and Pakistan. Since then traveling conditions in the area have not changed. That the Hindu's would kill each other with any new technological advance very early on sounds reasonable because there were no Islamic people to kill back then and since they are forbidden to kill animals they would have had to settle for something. We also know that from the very dim past Hindus had sulfur because they thought anything that stinks naturally must be good for something and used saltpeter to make incense to get rid of the stinky sulfur smell. Of course everyone had charcoal because even the most backward of ancient people took their Bar-B-Q grills everywhere. The ancient Hindus favorite Bar-B-Q was six veggies on a stick until someone came up with eight veggies on a stick. Hindus today are mostly very nice people. They are interesting because they won't squash a bug but will point an atomic bomb at you if agitated and have a passion for ceramic tile flooring. They also have to immediately take a bath if they get near the wrong person. Since India now has a huge Islamic population observant Hindus are very clean. Bruce

There was a Harold Lloyd movie on TCM Tuesday. It was made by Lloyd and he had a full scale model of the Rocket built for the movie. It really looked good and they had a lot of track laid for the movie. The movie was supposed to take place in the 1830's. Rick Larson

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. Hunter Thompson