A terribly foppish, disconnected and pointless tale you can happily skip.
Several years ago I got around to reading Sherlock Holmes and the Red Headed League, in which Holmes copies all ‘A’ entries from the Encyclopedia Britannica. Inspired by my hero, I vowed to read up every volume of the Encyclopedia. But my school library then did not have anything other than Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew and Tom Swift. When I managed to go to a decent school a couple of years later, I found the 32 volume collection complete with the index volumes.
As any modern cyber-sapien would do on Wikipedia today, I jumped to an article, found something interesting and went back to the index and jumped to a new volume – doing this for several weeks. I started somewhere with the Titanic ( Duh, It was 1998 ) and went to Steam Ships, Engines etc.. before coming to The Great Eastern. And then The Great Western. And so I found Isambard Kingdom Brunel – The first great engineer to achieve fame and fortune outside of geekdom (And you thought it was Bill Gates ?). And several years later (by a fabulous slice of luck) I got a used copy of “Brunel: The Life and Times of Isambard Kingdom” and read it cover to cover.
Last week, one of my friends in Dublin mentioned this incredible cliff walk from Greystones to Bray. After doing some research about the walk, I found out that the railway line from Bray to Wicklow runs beneath the cliff walk. My extremely annoying memory that cannot forget trivial details kept nagging me that there was something about the Railway Line, Dublin, Bray and Wicklow that I had read someday somewhere. As it turns out, this was a line designed by Isambard Brunel. But this was one of Isambard’s failures. Popularly called “Isambard’s Folly” the Bray-Wicklow line had one of the “worst Irish Rail Accidents” in 1867 (Huh, 2 people died) and is a nightmare to maintain even this day.
Today, I managed to locate the trail at Greystone and did the 2 hour walk to Bray and even located the site of the 1867 accident (I think).
If you look closely, you can see the wreck from an old wooden railway track. There are no signs to indicate if this is the site. The locals or the hikers have no idea about the accident. But a wee bit of research seems to indicate this possibility.
(The walk is recommended even if you are not an Isambard fan, the view is just mind-blowing)
It so happens that I chose the most extraordinary day to do the hike because today, the 9th of August 2008, happens to be the 140th anniversary of the forgotten accident on the bray wicklow line.
Isambard caused some entropy in my existence because after I spent my Summer Holidays reading about all this guy’s work, I had this temporary fantasy of being a great mechanical engineer and took up the engineering branch at school. And it kind of sounds like “Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world, she walks into mine”, that I should visit the site of this man’s great failure.
I am almost certain that I am the only human being on the planet interested in Isamabard’s Folly who counted the anniversary today. So much for the vicissitudes of chance and the excesses of esoteric knowledge 
Filed under: General
Hey what do you mean you took up mechanical engineering at school??
Did your school teach engg subjects??
Anyway it looks like one hell of a trek roger on that one………
@ anand,
Nope. I meant the “engineering stream” at school. As opposed to biology, commerce, history .. Not that I would have volunteered for any of those. But reading about Tsiolkovsky, Brunel or Kalashnikov does leave an impression when you are in half pants
Hi,
I think in the Red Headed league, it was the red-headed man who copies the list under ‘A’ and he seeks Holmes’ help when he suddenly looses that job.
Or is it that Holmes who copied the stuff ?
But the remaining part of the post is really great. Though I know nothing about it, I think it was too much of a work for visiting wreck of a railway line of historic importance.
@ bala,
You are right. Its “Jabez Wilson” who copies the entries. Not Holmes. Not sure why but I somehow had the impression Holmes did the copying to snoop on the cellar diggers
Good piece of information! I knew about Isambard Brunel, but never to the extent of knowing about his failures.
By the way, I never thought Bill Gates to be the first to achieve fame and fortune outside of geekdom. I thought it was Alfred Nobel and T.A.Edison. Well, I.K.Brunel can also join them at the top of the podium.
Well interestingly enough i never read about any of them………. even though i ended doing a mechanical engineering ……… may be that’s the reason i went on to become a sw engr………..