carlfogel@comcast.net
12-31-1969, 08:00 PM
Boy, some of those crazy guys are hard to track down over a century
later.
"Mile-a-minute" Murphy is fairly easy to find because he broke the
obvious speed limit in 1899 (and no one mis-spelled his name as
Murfee).
But E.E. Anderson was awfully hard to track down.
In 1896, three years before Murphy, Anderson did a mile behind a train
with a less impressive fairing outside St. Louis, Missouri, in 63
seconds, just over 57 mph.
Part of the trouble was that Anderson didn't breka the obvious 60 mph
mark, so he wasn't as famous.
But most of the trouble was that Anderson was also known as Henderson,
Hendersen, and Andersen, due to incompetent reporters. In fact, Fred
Rompelberg's bicycle land-speed list mistakenly (but in good faith)
lists Anderson as Hendersen:
http://www.fredrompelberg.com/en/html/algemeen/fredrompelberg/record.asp#a02P1Q1LKT1UV6572MX66
Later, in 1905, Anderson reached 60 mph, but got little publicity. (As
an analogy, ask yourself who was the runner who held the mile record
before Roger Bannister ran it in under 4 minutes? And who was the
runner who first bettered Bannister's time?)
Anyway, I finally found a picture of the son-of-a--
Er, I finally found a nice picture of Anderson in article, reproduced
from some German book. The article itself has lots of good pictures
and details and data about going faster on bicycles, going back as far
as Starley's safety bike:
http://www.tudelft.nl/live/binaries/10f62e5d-436a-4731-9186-7af1b7b4fb03/doc/KyleWeaver2004.pdf
Anderson is shown behind his train in figure 8.
For comparison, here's Murphy's much more impressive train fairing:
http://arrts-arrchives.com/images/qqcbrmmm3.jpg
And a Murphy article, with more pictures:
http://arrts-arrchives.com/mmm.html
Cheers,
Carl Fogel
later.
"Mile-a-minute" Murphy is fairly easy to find because he broke the
obvious speed limit in 1899 (and no one mis-spelled his name as
Murfee).
But E.E. Anderson was awfully hard to track down.
In 1896, three years before Murphy, Anderson did a mile behind a train
with a less impressive fairing outside St. Louis, Missouri, in 63
seconds, just over 57 mph.
Part of the trouble was that Anderson didn't breka the obvious 60 mph
mark, so he wasn't as famous.
But most of the trouble was that Anderson was also known as Henderson,
Hendersen, and Andersen, due to incompetent reporters. In fact, Fred
Rompelberg's bicycle land-speed list mistakenly (but in good faith)
lists Anderson as Hendersen:
http://www.fredrompelberg.com/en/html/algemeen/fredrompelberg/record.asp#a02P1Q1LKT1UV6572MX66
Later, in 1905, Anderson reached 60 mph, but got little publicity. (As
an analogy, ask yourself who was the runner who held the mile record
before Roger Bannister ran it in under 4 minutes? And who was the
runner who first bettered Bannister's time?)
Anyway, I finally found a picture of the son-of-a--
Er, I finally found a nice picture of Anderson in article, reproduced
from some German book. The article itself has lots of good pictures
and details and data about going faster on bicycles, going back as far
as Starley's safety bike:
http://www.tudelft.nl/live/binaries/10f62e5d-436a-4731-9186-7af1b7b4fb03/doc/KyleWeaver2004.pdf
Anderson is shown behind his train in figure 8.
For comparison, here's Murphy's much more impressive train fairing:
http://arrts-arrchives.com/images/qqcbrmmm3.jpg
And a Murphy article, with more pictures:
http://arrts-arrchives.com/mmm.html
Cheers,
Carl Fogel