Rail Bikes & Velocipedes

During a brief trip over to York to see the Bishophill Velocipede Festival, more of which in another post, I called in to see a completely different type of Velocipede event at the National Railway Museum. This was a weekend visit of the the UK Velocipede Group who were demonstrating some adapted bicycles, home-brew designs and original machines which were designed to get inspectors and engineers around the railways.

Here is an adapted bike alongside an original design.



Another design based around a bicycle frame.



And this is their, build it yourself, track bike design



which can be pedalled in either direction, so you don't have to lift it up and turn it round.



All the machines just follow the rails, except for the adapted bicycle which has to be steered along the rail. Note how the wheels all sit on top of the rails, where as the other designs have flanged wheels.



The earlier machines are all hand powered with a rowing motion and are designed to carry two people.



These two on show belong to the Railway Museum





Whenever I see a machine like this I have visions of riding round the tram tracks in central Manchester.... ;)