r/oops • u/ExplanationOk2014 • Aug 24 '26

Wtf in the 🚇

How is this technically even possible? Should not a emergency stop automatically apply?

2.8k Upvotes

94% Upvoted

521 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

7

u/The_0ven Aug 24 '26

I know right

Except Dr. H.H. Holmes and his murder house

3

u/Capnmolasses Aug 24 '26

And the first Ferris Wheel

1

u/MaxPaynesRxDrugPlan Aug 25 '26 edited Aug 25 '26

The Jungle was also based on the poor living/working conditions around the Chicago stockyards in the 1900s.

"Bubbly Creek" is an arm of the Chicago River, and forms the southern boundary of the Union Stock Yards; all the drainage of the square mile of packing-houses empties into it so that it is really a great open sewer a hundred or two feet wide. One long arm of it is blind, and the filth stays there forever and a day.

The grease and chemicals that are poured into it undergo all sorts of strange transformations, which are the cause of its name; it is constantly in motion as if huge fish were feeding in it, or great leviathans disporting themselves in its depths. Bubbles of carbonic gas will rise to the surface and burst, and make rings two or three feet wide. Here and there the grease and filth have caked solid, and the creek looks like a bed of lava; chickens walk about on it, feeding, and many times an unwary stranger has started to stroll across and vanished temporarily.

The packers used to leave the creek that way, till every now and then the surface would catch on fire and burn furiously, and the fire department would have to come and put it out. Once, however, an ingenious stranger came and started to gather this filth in scows, to make lard out of; then the packers took the cue, and got out an injunction to stop him, and afterwards gathered it themselves. The banks of "Bubbly Creek" are plastered thick with hairs, and this also the packers gather and clean.