"A party of men and women were looking at the Niles 20-foot boring and turning mill, the table of which is constantly revolving, and an old chap with classic golways remarked, 'I wonder what that big thing does.' An observing old lady with him said it looked 'mighty like a merry-go-round without the hosses;' but another old wiseacre scoffed at the absurdity and told them that it was 'a turntable for a roundhouse, used by them thar railroads.' This settled the matter to the satisfaction of all concerned...I fully expected to be asked if the crane trolley, which has grooved drums...was a sausage machine, but was spared this."
Dirty laundry
Rickety railroad
This turbulent track, once in the plant yard of Sperry Products, Danbury, Conn., was made up of the worst rail faults found by Sperry's rail-inspection cars from the thousands of miles tested across the U.S. Railroad engineers used this track to determine the reliability of reconditioned railroad cars. "The faults certainly are there, too," wrote the editors, "about 120 different kinds of breaks, cracks, pits, holes, and otherwise dangerous faults — all in about 1 /5 of a mile."