From the chicken cannon to the cross-channel bridge: nine weird innovations from the archives
As well as reporting on many of technology's most significant and important milestones, The Engineer has also highlighted many of its stranger innovations. In this article, we take a look at some of the weirdest projects to grace the publication's pages.
Today’s submarines boast some of the most advanced propulsion systems ever developed, but back in the early days of underwater travel, the means of propulsion was somewhat more primitive. In this article from 1856 – The Engineer’s first year of publication – the magazine wrote about the development of ‘Deschamps and Vilcocq’s free diving boat’ – a hand-powered submarine.
Read our archive coverage here
The murky streets of Victorian England could be a dangerous place. And in a world where strangulation was the killer’s favoured technique, How’s patent garotte-preventing stock offered some form of protection. It doesn't look very comfortable though.
Read about the garotte proof cravat here
It was the golden age of rail, and here The Engineer outlined an innovation that would allow the romance of rail to follow you all the way to your front door: the portable railway.
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