A closer look
Before the era of high-tech drones and automated sensors, track safety was largely entrusted to a guy pedaling a glorified bicycle down active rail lines. Various inventors, famously documented in Clifford Harper's historical oddity illustrations, pioneered pedal-powered velocipedes to inspect remote tracks. This brilliant innovation meant inspectors had to physically ride a heavily modified metal tricycle down the very same rails used by massive, speeding locomotives. If a steam engine suddenly appeared on the horizon, the inspector's only safety mechanism was jumping off and frantically dragging his contraption into the bushes.
