The Track Not Taken

The Meigs Elevated Railway—one of the world’s first monorail systems—looked like something out of a Jules Verne novel. But it was very real. In this week’s episode, hear how nineteenth-century Bostonians missed their chance to build a steam punk utopia. The monorail system was the brainchild of Joe Meigs, a Civil War veteran and tinkerer who had political and financial backing from Massachusetts governor Benjamin Butler. Meigs envisioned a system that would soar above the streetcar traffic clogging Boston’s streets. Beginning in 1884, thousands of people boarded his distinctive cylindrical train cars for 20-mph rides around a test track in East Cambridge, MA. The system was a technical success, and eventually Meigs obtained a charter to build miles of monorail track around Boston. But a fateful attack one winter night in 1887 dashed his hopes—and proved that the best technology isn’t always the one that wins widespread adoption. Featured guest: Charles Sullivan of the Cambridge Historical Commission. Charlie also provided key historical perspective in Soonish 1.09, A Tale of Two Bridges. Featured voice: Charles Gustine, producer, Iconography To browse an extensive gallery of images of the Meigs monorail, check out our show notes. A full episode transcript is available in the Extras section of the Soonish website. Related episode: Soonish 1.02, Monorails: Trains of Tomorrow? We need your ideas to make the show better! Please take a few minutes to fill out our listener survey at soonishpodcast.org/survey. CHAPTER GUIDE 0:55 Opening 1:58 The Unknown Railway 2:49 Monorail Fanboy 3:37 225 Bridge Street 5:42 Readings from The Meigs Railway 6:42 Untangling the Streetcar System 8:32 Light and Air 10:10 Who Was Joe Meigs? 11:42 One Little Problem 12:18 Building the Demonstration Track 13:09 Four Wheel Drive 14:20 Sausage on a Stick 15:58 Two Ways of Moving People 16:37 Foul Play 18:05 A Stubborn Guy 20:01 Parallel Universe 21:49 How We Choose the Future 22:22 End Credits and Announcement The Soonish theme is by Graham Gordon Ramsay. Additional music from Titlecard Music and Sound. For complete details on this episode go to soonishpodcast.org/302-the-track-not-taken. Soonish is a proud founding member of Hub & Spoke, a collective of smart, idea-driven nonfiction podcasts. Learn more at hubspokeaudio.org. Don't forget to fill out our listener survey at soonishpodcast.org/survey. If you haven’t already, please rate and review Soonish on Apple Podcasts / iTunes! The more ratings we get, the more people will find the show. See https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/soonish/id1185234753?mt=2 You can also support the show with a per-episode donation at patreon.com/soonish. Listener support makes all the difference! Give us a shout on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram and sign up for our email newsletter, Signals from Soonish.