Flying Lamppost Boats: The Beautifully Bonkers 1880s Plan For The Paris Métro
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 27 май 2020
- It's the 1880s, and Paris desperately needs a metro, but nobody can agree how to build it. Underground? Too smelly. Aerial? Too Ugly. "Wait a minute", says Navy captain Edouard Mazet, "I have an idea..."
A big thank you to Caroline Grubbs of Southern Methodist University for help researching this story! You can read her essay on the topic here (in French) - serd.hypotheses.org/files/201...
INSTA - / the.tim.traveller
TWIT - / thetimtraveller
FACE - / thetimtraveller
Translations of the French texts:
At 1:30 Louis Heuzé says:
"Don’t impose cold, humid, dark, smoky and excessively dangerous underground routes on us by the crossing of numerous lines. Let us traverse Paris under the light of day!"
At 2:10 Jean Chrétien (no, not that one, Canadians) says:
"Everyone knows, in fact, that an excellent means of adding value to certain monuments consists of placing in their vicinity - and sometimes directly in front of them - accessory constructions which don’t have any other raison d’être… The elevated railway is 85 metres away from the façade, so the observer would need to be 110 to 120 m away before the silhouette of the viaduct starts to be projected onto the monument. And if they move further away, the viaduct - which is of a very lightweight design - loses its relative importance and appears to be little more than a net which cannot bother anyone in general."
Thank you!
So helpful!
+1 for "No, not that one..."
@@GeekmanCA Somehow he knew exactly what we were thinking O.o
@@FrauWNiemand I feel an intricate game of broken-telephone coming on...
Actually reading through the texts a second time, I think I made a mistake in the first one - "dangerous" was referring to the tunnels themselves, not the crossing of lines. So it should have been "Don’t impose cold, humid, dark, smoky and excessively dangerous underground routes on us by the crossing of numerous lines."
TIL: in 1900 Parisians lowered their standards and agreed to copy the Brits.
Haha yes that's probably the correct way to look at it :)
@TheRenaissanceman65 From a French point of view yes
@TheRenaissanceman65 Oh we're fully aware of that don't worry
TheRenaissanceman65 as far as the French are concerned every day building something useful is a potential day of striking and protesting wasted
@TheRenaissanceman65 Except only insane can call XIX century metro 'actually working'. It was as bad as the French text states, Paris built it once technology improved...
That’s accordion version of the London underground song is perfect 👌🏼 😂😂
Just watched more of the video, village people ‘in the navy’ accordion version FFS 😂😂
And the channel outro, I mean the Wish You Were Here theme too!
Yeah the jam - going underground was great
wait, the Jay Foreman one?
Link to the accordion version?
I love how accurately you depicted Paris in 1873. I didn't expect any actual footage from that era. Nice job!
Haha : D Nobody needs to know how long I spent looking for genuine 1870s-80s archive footage before I googled "what year was film invented?"
Didn't know they had to wear theese facemasks already
@@louisgray3479 people have always suffered under immense oppression!
Do SOMETHING NOW! ✊🏻😡🙄
😆😆✌🏻
"We cant deface a monument with this elegant looking elevated railway"
This ugly square full of cars is dope though
this is the best history channel out there
You know, adopting the 'floating lamppost track' for the section in front of the opera as _part_ of Chrétien's elevated railway would have been quite the party trick for Paris.
The french love debating : never have I been so insulted by something I completely agree with
No your'e not
Où voyez-vous du débat ? C'est une chaîne qui fait plus sournoisement qu'ailleurs du french bashing et rien d'autre.
Dans le cas du métro parisien, il grossit le trait en focalisant sur l'un des projets les plus farfelus en omettant la complexité du vrai débat des infrastructures ferroviaires parisiennes au 19e siècle, c'est tout simplement de la manipulation grossière.
@@srr9982 k
@@srr9982 Calmos
No dislikes. The way every Tim Traveller video should be!
I'm tempted to dislike it just to be a shit stirrer 👀
Smeglore Someone beat you to it. There’s always one.....
@@SprocketN feck 😢
No! Somebody had to...
@@GeographyWorld at least no one subscribed to my RUclips channel amiright guys? 😉 huh? 😉😉😉 huuuh amiright
The French, their technical solutions are always on the edge
genious or insane are very close together.
Mass production of them is not their thing.
Can you imagine the strains on the chassis of the boat in rush hour... uff
*hull
wait that's not right either.
Tim's been in France for too long already. Any sentence that contains the words "overground, underground..." should immediately be followed by "...wombling free".
The documentary series just happened to be about the ones on Wimbledon Common.
1:53 Darn, you know us snarky Canadians too well, Tim! Can't get anything past you.
Diantre! Quelqu'un m'a battu de vitesse à commenter sur le clin d'oeil du Jean Chrétien canadien, que voulez-vous !
@@MichelFortin898 Haha désolé! Quelqu'un fallait le dire!
His pop-up caught me, a Canadian, in mid-formulation of snark, bless him!
Who are you calling 'snarky'? (sorry........ :) )
Snarky Canadians??? There is no such thing, sorry 🤣
Canadiens désagréables ? Désolé, mais ça n'existe pas 😂
Amazing! I love "how it could have been" transport history things like this - and the idea of lamppost boats is wonderful; thank you!
It is a fact that our metro is the best and most beautiful of them all
haha petite grenouille t'es stupide. tout sait que Londres est le meilleur
Thank you Dear Leader.
Pyongyang has a metro?
@@pfsantos007 yup, it's rocket propelled :)
Yeah, but the posters all look the same.
That was beautiful. And the line about someone else figuring out how to power it had me chortling.
Wow! That idea was certainly ahead of its time - whenever its time is...
Absolutely love the accordian version of Going Underground lol
Shame this video is only 5 minutes long. I could listen to this story for half an hour. So interesting. Thanks Tim Traveller
So funny! No matter what Tim presents, it is always such a joy watching and listening 👍
It's a shame they've defaced the city with those giant billboards. "Oh you like architecture? How about the new iPhone instead?"
To be fair, I think (I *think*) the billboard is on top of some scaffolding, so it's only temporary, and it's probably helping to finance the restoration of the building
Oh, I see, that would make sense. Great video by the way!
Not like Times Square in NYC where just about every building has an electronic billboard attached. Yay?
Sighs in Piccadilly circus
@@dangerrangerlstc but that's why times square is famous worldwide.
I have no idea where you find the subjects for these videos, but I am so glad you do. This one in particular is an amazing subject that is so obscure I'm surprised it exists. Keep going with the great videos.
I've watched every video on your channel and they're all amazing. Keep up the great work!
I loved the French accordion version of your usual ending music. I feel there needs to be at least one episode where you cover the 'Allo 'Allo! theme on piano, though.
I have played the ‘Allo ‘Allo theme, solo, in a concert, on a flute. And no, there’s no footage of it… besides, I’m no match for Tim’s musical repertoire.
I mean, that is slightly genius. You’d need nearly solid lamp posts and they’d need to be quite close together but it probably wouldn’t interrupt the view as much as aerial rail.
Since each car is meant to always be touching at least two pole, you could make each alternating pole… um… well, alternating poles (polarity) for your power source. Or have two contact rings on each pole.
For bends, you could make them articulate at multiple points. Each pole could be indexed in some way to set the lead car heading toward the next pole. The rest could trail.
All up, it would be an extremely interesting engineering exercise that would be far too costly and complex to ever do anywhere other than Disneyland.
So perfectly Parisian?
Thank you Tim, good to see you back here again!
The floating railway is amusing. He seemed to have missed that the boats needed to be long enough to span 3 posts, not 2 if he wanted them to stay upright and have two posts under them at all times.
Just brilliant, Tim! Your cheery voice is a proper tonic in these times.
Tim: "boatbusmetrotraintramwaysystemthing"
Numtots: PeAk tRaNsiT!!!!
bruh when did Numtot get so huge
Cities skyline has entered the chat
I’m trying to listen to the video, but my mind is drawn in by the cover of Going Underground... it’s mesmeric
Lu et approuvé. I see what you did there.
I actually lolled alone in my office. Jean Chrétien, complete with picture of le "p'tit gars de Shawinigan" (yes, that's a town), our Prime Minister for 10 years and memorable mostly for speaking both French and English as though each was his second language.
Thanks Tim. As usual, your subjects are fascinating & the narration brilliant!
As a transport designer, this has been my favourite video lol
BEST CHANNEL EVER!!!
LOUDEST COMMENT SINCE 5 MINUTES AGO!
THAT´S RIGHT!
Can we all agree that this is some awesome steampunk material
You always manage to teach me something new and interesting, thank you for that mate !
Wohooo, you're back and not dead!
You can keep making videos like this forever and I will watch every single one of them!
It took me all this time to discover that you were playing The Jam's "Going Underground" with a stereotypical French accordion arrangement. Bravo, sir.
The Jam on accordian...love it 😂👍
Fascinating idea.
And very, well presented (as per usual for you).
Thank you for this video.
Love your videos... The editing in this video had my laughing hysterically! Love it! Keep it up! Wish your content came out more often, you are one of my favorite RUclipsrs!
That gives “up a pole” a whole new definition!
Ace video! Thank you so much for making it!
I didn’t expect to see the little guy from Shawinigan in this video 👍🏻
Powered by free energy as all buildings, tramways and lampposts was in the 1800s.
The french debated for 10 years as the metro was already built for them. It took them ten years to clear it out.
It’s good to see you back Tim the traveller with your cheery vlogs it brightens us up from all this madness
I really like how you're getting around the current limitations of only-Paris stuff. This was every bit as interesting and funny as any of your other videos. Nicely done.
2:06 I heard that Wilhelm scream hiding in there.
This idea still rocks through. Maybe one day
These remind me of the Sail Barges from the Sarlacc Pit for some reason....
yeah
probably because they look very similar
3:25 - a piano version of the 'Tomorrow's World' theme? They definitely had ideas more random than a streetlight boat on occasion! Keep up the good work and thank you for keeping us amused during isolation!
I would LOVE to ride some lamp post boats, in a theme park for example. And yes, turning corners is not possible, going uphill might be. For corners you could install proper rails to ride along or install some train yard like rotary plate where one lamp would revolve around the center post.
I thought of something like that with my own solutions(for all the problems!)
Just for fun, I put my own head to the problems mentioned in the video: How it would be powered, how it would handle corners and how it would go uphill!
Whether or not Paris would of accepted these proposals is something else! But here are my solutions:
Uphill Movement: Bring the Lamppost Boat to a stop on a lamppost with a hinged Roller(the video seemed to mention the boats propelled by rollers) platform. The platform is locked in place as the boat proceeds up a gradient(the following lamppost platforms on the gradient, providing it’s roughly the same angle, are fixed in their angle). Once you reach the top of a gradient, I imagine the same solution as for the start of a gradient.
Corners: Similar to the solution for uphill movement, the Lamppost boat comes to a stop on a Roller Platform which is fixed, then released and turned(possibly by hand) on a hinged lamppost top and lined up with lampposts on the required street, before being fixed in position again.
Power: Whether or not this really would work well or be accepted by Paris, Steam Power! The roller is powered by a small steam engine, the fire, equipment and controls for the engine are blended into the lamppost facade.
Brilliant film Tim and a love the back ground music😎
Laughed way louder than I should have at the Lu et approuvé joke
Brilliant and mad. I've missed this
I love your video editing style
Great video as always!!
Another fun little film about a fascinating historical topic that I had no clue about. Thanx for these humorous insights! :)
Wow, beautiful lovely knowledge nugget of the month!
Great video as usual ! It also strangely reminds me the abandoned Aérotrain project.
Ah thank you :) Yes me too! I was planning to do a video about the Aérotrain (the abandoned track still exists about an hour south of Paris) but then shutdown happened. Hopefully I'll get a chance to visit it now that the situation is getting better
@@TheTimTraveller I've seen the pictures of the tracks and the prototype trains but never been there. So yeah if you make a video on it that would be génial !
What a beautifully mad idea.
Very interesting, and a nice bit of 'La Confiture' in the background too
The name Tim Traveller makes me smile every time
Canadian here, you made me spit take coffee with laughter
Wow that's interesting. It reminds me only of one thing: The new railway line from Athens to Patras. They can't decide where the train should pass through Patras and the construction hasn't started for a decade now...
The accordion version of the song in the end was great!! :D
Cheers Tim!
Finally RUclips has recommended me some good content!
I love the frenchifiied version of Going Underground. I'm sure The Jam never anticipated *that* cover.
Wonderfully bonkers idea, shame it wasn't ever made!
Love your content
Hello!!! I LOVE this tune...
Tim is so funny, he could do videos about dirt and still make people laugh
by the way, I know what Tim could make a video about, even a serie of videos maybe, but not leave Paris: the catacombs *evil laugh*
One of the projects I actually liked was the Haag project. Granted it was made of big stone viaducts all over the city but the idea was to cumulate regional and local services on four tracks. Look at it as more stylish New York Subway system... The only thing is that I'd rather have it underground. But there you have it, both networks in one. Since the City and the State were battling on whether to build a regional network or a municipal one, Haag had the solution, make both in one go. Obviously, it was deemed to be so expansive that it was never really seriously considered...
L.U. et approuvé! I see what you did there! Good one!
Jean Tricoire did an excellent book of the Metro- its title was 'Un siecle de Metro en 14 lignes De Bienvenue a Meteor', EAN 9782915034325 , which really helped me while studying French. It used many of the exact same illustrations in this video. I'll never forget flying lampost boat sketch. This is where I first learned the word farfelu- hairbrained.
The Metro was finally built by a one armed engineer called Fulgence Bienvenue. When all the bickering had stopped and the Parisians finally got their act together, enough time had elapsed that everyone else developing a metro or underground had had plenty time to hone their techniques, discover problems, develope technology and solutions within their own systems. This conveniently meant that Fulgence was conveniently forearmed with ready made supply of tried and tested efficient methods and so could really crack on and get things done. Plus he had a couple of his own ideas up his sleeves. One such novel idea was used during construction of line 4 under the Seine. As it left Isle de la Cite, there was unstable soft ground under the mainline railway from the Gare d'Orsay which went right along the bank of the Seine. To pass under it, tunnelling would endanger the railway. Fulgence's solution was to refrigerate; to freeze the ground solid to enough depth to allow tunnel construction without upsetting the railway above.
As if in reply to the aerial railway in front of Opera, there are some amazing construction photos of the huge pit dug in front of an below to accommodate three metro lines crossing each other at three quite different depths.
Very interesting and well presented, thanks from Orlando
Interesting and well done video!
The use of Going Underground sincerely pleased me
Excellent!
Glad to see a video from you again! How about a video of the Swedish explorer Mr Andrée. Balloon to the north pole... Sounds right up your street!
I really love your Monty Python-esque quirky animations and even quirkier sounds. #pffffffffff
That is the weirdest railway I have ever heared of. Very interresting.
1:53 - Bursting out laughing at the sudden appearance of the little man from Shawinigan. Cheers from Canada.
An excellent Idea 👍
Welcome back!
Love that accordion cover version of The Jam :-))))))))))
I recognized it, but only know it from this version: ruclips.net/video/UHu_cfy33bY/видео.html
beautiful
Love the backing music at the start all I could think about for the rest of the video was the London Underground song
and this is how the imagination works. you can't travel the world looking for weird things, because there's weird things right in your own back yard. EXCELLENT SHOW!! You Got This.
I just have to comment that while it is an outrageously silly and crazy idea, there is something so wonderfully steampunk about it that it is a shame that it was never built. :D
While watching this(which I very much enjoyed! 🤗) I put my own head to the problems mentioned in the video!
How it would be powered, how it would handle corners and how it would go uphill!
Whether or not Paris would of accepted these proposals is something else! But here are my solutions:
Uphill Movement: Bring the Lamppost Boat to a stop on a lamppost with a hinged Roller(the video seemed to mention the boats propelled by rollers) platform. The platform is locked in place as the boat proceeds up a gradient(the following lamppost platforms on the gradient, providing it’s roughly the same angle, are fixed in their angle). Once you reach the top of a gradient, I imagine the same solution as for the start of a gradient.
Corners: Similar to the solution for uphill movement, the Lamppost boat comes to a stop on a Roller Platform which is fixed, then released and turned(possibly by hand) on a hinged lamppost top and lined up with lampposts on the required street, before being fixed in position again.
Power: Whether or not this really would work well or be accepted by Paris, Steam Power! The roller is powered by a small steam engine, the fire, equipment and controls for the engine are blended into the lamppost facade.
It's "would have", not "would of".
I loved the accordion version of Going Underground! XD
4:36 now that's a subway entry
You can fix the "going around corners" thing by making a bigger lamppost that can support the entire boat by itself, and you just make the lamppost itself rotate. The boat must just stop at that position.
And for the uphill problem, as a Dutchman I'd say: what?
Great video content! Could you do the London Heathrow driverless pods? It would fit your channel completely ❤
Le Bateau Steampunk ??? Superbe comme toujours !!!!
There is MASSIVE potential here for some althist steampunk storytelling.
I love the way you speak French. I wish I could speak French like that. Damn clever clogs.
Tim! Firstly, great video as usual! This is just a bit of a random question as you seem to know a thing or two about a thing or two. What's the nearest mountainous or hilly region to Paris? Could a visitor to Paris conceivably get a train to somewhere within an hour of the city, climb some hills and come back the same day or after? Or do you just need to go to the Pyrenees or the Alps and have done with it?
What makes you think I'm the kind of person who would have already Googled "highest hills near Paris"?... :D
There are some minor hills immediately to the south / southwest of the city, which you could easily get to within an hour. For a proper climb your best bet is probably the TGV down to the Vosges or the Alps. Even with a TGV you'd be struggling to do it in a day trip, but you could fit it into a weekend.
as a canadian, im surprised and delighted by the reference