Monday, November 16, 2009

Algo Magazine - October 1964

Welcome to an international version of Magazine Monday, or "Bienvenido a una versión internacional de Revista el lunes". From October 1964 its Algo Magazine, direct from Barcelona. I don’t speak Spanish (the internet did the above translation) so you are on your own with the vintage text in this post.






I see a phone number and something about subscriptions rates.






Disneylandia” interesting choice of photos in this article.






Could these two kids be less excited? I like the Main Street Station shot. Doesn’t the Gully Whumper look swell on the Rivers of America? Imagine the PR you ring out of bringing the Gully Whumper back to the river for the 55th anniversary. Get Fess Parker involved, re-release the old Keel Boat movies, and sell tons of Davey Crocket related merchandise. Are you listing George?






These are nice photos also. Too bad the inside pages are basically news print on cheap paper!






At least this color beauty was on the back cover. The flight circle looks empty, Cox Pilot must be on a break. The Yachtsmen are nowhere to be found either, but their little stage sure is cool. Its amazing to me that the hydraulic mechanism that moves the Rockets Jets is the exact same mechanism that's still up on top of the PeopleMover platform, I’m sad that it’s now a joke.






No Advertisements, so here's a couple of fun articles. Monorails in Japan? Those things are ugly; didn’t they have a Japanese equivalent of Bob Gurr?








Hmmm, this submarine design looks vaguely familiar?






In the text there's something about 1,000 meters, so there must not be too many similarities to Disneyland’s Submarines, we all know those only submerge 500 meters.




7 comments:

The Viewliner Limited said...

Cool post Tim. Love seeing obscure magazines. Great monorail piece.

Nametag Museum said...

Here is a translation of the Disneyland pages..

Page 32

DISNEYLAND

The city created by Walt Disney, for big and small

The extremey well-known film artis Walt Disney was born in 1901. He is the creator of a multitude of popular figures, like the mouse Mickey, the duck Donald, Pluto, Minnie, and many more, who have brought delight to millions of spectators the world over. Mickey Mouse, maybe the most popular of all Disney's creations, appeared in films in 1927. His fame grew through the years, and in 1935, in a ceremony held in Paris, Disney received a gold medal and certificate from the Leage of Nations that spoke of Mickey Mouse as "a symbol of international good will".

Page 33

In the above photo, a boy is photographed next to the world-famous Donald Duck. In the photo at left, the amusement park with storybook characters created by Disney. To the right, the train station, with its typical 1880's flavor, with the city's trains. In the pictures below, we see one of the boats from Gulliver's Travels navigating the river areas of Disneyland carrying onboard people big and small; and one of the small dwarves from the enchanted world of Snow White reincarnated as a small boy. The whole of Disneyland, with its attractions and recreated characters, enchants and delights people big and small, presents unique motifs in the world created by Walt Disney and his team of collaborators, remembering all the personalities, scenes, landscapes, and motifs that inspired its stories, some completely original creations of Walt Disney, others party styled after the original works of the great fairy tales.

page 34

One enters Fantasyland through a castle that encases mysterious corrirors and deep dungeons just like those in storybooks. In the photo at right, children on the castle drawbridge contemplate the swans that swim in the moat. Disneyland is an amusement park close to Los Angeles, California. In the other photos reproduced on this page, we see a partial view of the amusement park. In the below right photo, we see giant spinning tea cups, and below left, a small-scale recreation of Captain Hook's pirate galleon.

The other pages just talk about a monorail that is being developed in japan for the Olympic Games, and the bottom article pimps the wonders of a submarine being developed to take tourists on undersea adventures.

Major Pepperidge said...

Wow, thanks for the translation!!

Nametag Museum said...

PAGE 20

JAPANESE MONORAIL

Opened on the occasion of the Olympic Games

Although having just built a double line of surface and underground trains, the subway in Tokyo hasn't really solved the problems surrounding the city's transportation needs. On the

other hand, there is insufficient room at ground level to expand the already existing lines, and the installation of more underground lines would require an even more fantastic budget.

For said reasons, the Monorail, the latest fad in railroading, has been opened recently in Tokyo.

The construction of the Monorail, which connects Tokyo and Handeda, finds itself in service and the first test trip was made at the end of August. Now it can cover the distance

between Tokyo and Haneda in only 15 minutes, whereas up until today the trip has taken an hour and a half to go the 20 kilometers on the highways between the two cities. And it

doesnt need to be said that cars slow you down even more, due to the large amount of cars on the road.

The 13.2 kilometers of monorail track make it the first service of its kind in the world, and it was built by the company Nihon Koka Dentetsu Kabushiki Kaisha.

The train is painted in three colors - milk white, dark blue, and light blue, and it makes up three unites built by Hitachi, Limited, in colaboration with the Alweg Corporation, of

Cologne, West Germany, whose factory was the first in the world to build a monorail.

The maximim capacity of the three cars is 240 passengers When the monorail service was opened for the Olympic Games, six trains were in service, and its capacity increased to

489 passengers.

The six trains are intended to make almost 300 trips daily, transporting a total ogf 100,000 passengers.

PAGE 21


This monorail is the largest in the world in its class - for practical use- because the majority of the monorails in use around the world today are only intended for recreation, that is to

say, to take in the scenery.

The advantages of the monorail are as follows:

1. It only needs a small amount of land, only for the needs of its construction. Also, it only costs about 10 million yen to build a kilometer of track for the monorail, whereas an

underground subway has risen to between 20 and 40 million yen per kilometre.

2. The top speed of the monorail is no less than other surface trains, and the monorail can get up to a top speed of 120 kph. In the future, it is hoped that the monorail can be

made completely automatic, without the need for a human driver.

3. Passengers enjoy a sensation similar to that of riding a good horse, with no vibrations or disturbing noises, thanks to the special rubber rims and pneumatic tires applied to its

wheels.

Nametag Museum said...

4. There is no risk of derailment or upsetting of the cars, because the heaviest part of the train is actually located below the rails. The monorail belongs then, to the type of train the

English world calls "saddle bag type". This allows the monorail to take turns with complete security.

5. The monorail will have no competition in overland travel. As it is known, the airlines that support traffic between Tokyo and Haneda, are have shown themselves to be very

interested in this new service.

Also, people whose interests lie in the transportation of merchandise, are looking with a sharp eye at the monorail to transport heavy cargo, and affordable fares for cargo are being

examined in that respect.

From the station at Haneda, the line begins its run in the tunnels constructed beneath the foundations of Tokyo International Airport, and returns to the surface after going through a

tunnel built right underneath the airport runways. The monorail then runs directly to the centre of Tokyo, travelling near the beaches of Tokyo Bay. At this point, passengers can

enjoy beatufil marine views, the same view that boats in the harbor will see of the airplanes leaving and arriving at the airport on the other side of the bay, completing the curious

panorama of the monorail sliding by on its raised track, moving at a great speed. These interesting sights make up part of the advantages the monorail gives to its passengers.

The car or wagon of the Monorail is 7.4 meters long, 3 meters wide, and 4.3 meters high, and holds 80 passengers, with 40 sitting and standing. The monorail train is made up of

six units, with service every 8 to 10 minutes, maintaining a speed of 100 kph. The route goes from Haneda (Tokyo International Airport) to Hamanatsu-cho (at the center of Tokyo),

with stops at all the terminals along the way.



caption

These photographs show diverse aspects of the first trip of the monorail, from Tokyo Airpport to the centre of the city, the plan in experimentation, with the double line not yet

completed. On the previous page, you can see an internediate station on the line, with the various stations for boarding and departing. In this page, you can see some of the details

of the inside of one of the cars, and some of the preparations made for getting underway.

Nametag Museum said...

The "MesoScaphe" First tourist submarine

What exactly is the "MesoScaphe"? Simply put, it's an underwater bus perfectly designed to submerge to a depth of 1,000 meters, and this year has made the first tourist visit, for

the first time in history, to the bottom of lake Geneva, to a depth of 300 meters, as part of the Swiss National Exposition of 1964.

The 'Mesoscaphe' was idealized and conceived by the deceased genius August Piccard, and built by his son Jacques, who is continuing the scientific work of his tather.

The apparatus utilizes the basic principles of a submarine for its immersion, navigation, and return to the surface, but with distinct characteristics that make it completely different

from other submarines, the reason being, as we have said, for the first time in history, a submarine has been conceived, for taking pleasure cruises to the bottom of the sea, or to

the bottom of a lake, as in this case
.
One of the essential characteristics of the "MesoScaphe" is its autostability. The ship is as agile in the water as a fish, whereas on normal submarines, movement requires detailed

and complex movements.

Another of the undeatable characteristics is that in the case of whatever emergency that requires the "MesoScaphe" to return to the surface immediately, no propulsion motor is

required to return to the surface, as the "MesoScaphe" is lighter than the amount of water it displaces; in contrast to a normal submarine, as a result of being heavier, requires an

engine to make an emergency return to the surface.




As far as being merely touristic in nature, apart from the inherent comforts for the trip and the attention towards the travellers, it's most sensible aspects resides in the visuals that

the bottom of the sea offer the passenger, right from his comfortable seat, increased by the fact that sunlight does not reach these depths, and the sea is completely dark, and so

that the traveller can enjoy the sights, the submersible is equipped with 63 floodlights of 500 and 1000 watts that illuminate everything in its path, offering the traveller a panoramic

view of the bottom of the ocean unequalled by any other method of observation. In these circumstances, a voyage to the bottom of the sea, today made a complete reality, is one

of true beauty and a truly impressive attraction.

Nametag Museum said...

The "MesoScaphe" handles exactly like an airplane thanks to its flying blind. Precisely for that reason, an airline pilot was trained in its operation, instead of the captain of a boat.

The submersible comes equipped with two echo sounders, one port and one aft. This kind of radar gives the "MesoScaphe" warnings of rocks projecting from the sea floor, and whatever other kinds of obstacles it might find in its blind navigation where sunlight never reaches. For a trip in the open water, the pilot uses maps, a compass, and an autogyroscope. To land on the bottom of the sea, the "MesoScaphe" uses a sonobouy and sends out a radar ping to the control room when it finds itself at a depth of thirty meters.

These systems are the same used for navigation on submarines and airplanes at war, and the sonobouy is becoming the radio beacon for commercial avation.

It's also worth noting that the control room of the "MesoScaphe" is small enough to be manned by only two men, unlike military submarines which, in order to complete the most basic navigation, require a much larger compliment of crew.

August and Jacques Picand have offered the world the first fruits of the navigation of the bottom of lakes and seas. Years ago they created their "bathysphere" for scientific investigation, today they have their "MesoScaphe" for simple tourist visits.

CAPTION


In the above photo, the "MesoScaphe" in the drydock where it was built, as it is examined after the first experimental voyage to the bottom of Lake Geneva. In the below photo,

Jacques Picard, son of the famous wiseman August Picard, in the command room of the "MesoScaphe", explaining the functionality of the submersible to a group of visiting specialised nautical engineers. The "MesoScaphe" is has been, and is, the most quoted of all the attractions offered to guests at the Swiss Exposition. Projections are being made for its publicity tour next season, once the Swiss exposition is over, and among the different places where the "MesoScaphe" could see service is our Costa Brava, in a touristic voyage to the historic waters of the Meditaranean.


(keep in mind these are a general translation, as my Castillian is a bit rusty after all these years)