John wrote... >IIRC all the vacuum sucked up was money
Depends a bit who you believe! The flaw was, undoubtedly in the tallow used to grease the leather seals. Whether it was eaten by rodents though or nicked by the workers we'll never know. Of course Brunel was, as so often, simply ahead of the available technology, at the end of the day what he invented was a railway powered from a central source - we now have electricity! Glen
