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    IRON RAILWAY BRIDGE COLLAPSE
    July 31, 1849 - Pennsylvania, USA

    Near Mast Hope, Pennsylvania, collapsed as a stock train was crossing. The engineer heard a loud cracking, pulled the throttle wide open, and succeeded in getting the engine across in safety. However, the rest of the train fell into the deep ravine of the Westcolang Creek along with the wrecked bridge. A brakeman and two stockmen lost their lives. The New York and Erie Railroad had that year experimented by building three iron bridges, including the one that failed. In 1850, an article in the Scientific American magazine reported that the company, having lost confidence in iron bridges, would tear down the two remaining and replace them with wooden structures.

    FIRST U.S. PATENT
    July 31, 1790 - USA

    Patent was granted to Samuel Hopkins of Vermont for a process for making potash and pearl ashes. Potash was important as an ingredient in soap and fertilizer. The patent was granted for a term of 14 years and signed by President George Washington, who had the previous month signed the first U.S. patent statute into law on 10 April 1790. Hopkins did not get Patent with a serial No.1 as thousands of patents were issued before the Patent Office began to number them. Congress had passed the Patent Act on 10 Apr 1790. Two other patents were granted that year - one for a new candle-making process and the other the flour-milling machinery of Oliver Evans. The next year, 1791, Samuel Hopkins also was granted the first Canadian patent.

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Not long ago, I had the opportunity to rent a Fiat 500 Car. It's a little tiny car, just a smidge over the size of a Smart Car. It ran nice, easy to park, and the power was actually okay.

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Not long ago, I had the opportunity to rent a Fiat 500 Car. It's a little tiny car, just a smidge over the size of a Smart Car. It ran nice, easy to park, and the power was actually okay. The best part was the ease of use and incredible mileage rating - perfect for a local city car. In fact, the mileage was rated at 40 miles per gallon. I had noted when there was significant wind resistance, that is to say driving against the wind that the mileage had gone down a bit, but it was easy to gain that back while traveling with the wind. Like I said it was a very small car.

As you probably know the Fiat 500 is not actually an inexpensive car, even though it is merely a pod with four wheels. However, you might be able to buy a used one, perhaps at an auto auction. The reason I say this is that the auto auctions are filled with former rental cars. Typically a Rent-A-Car agency will run the car for 20,000 to 30,000 miles and then sell it at the auto auctions, or some rental agencies now have their own used car lots. Do I think that there will be a significant number of Fiat 500s available at the auto auctions in 2013 in 2014? Actually I do.

You see, Auto Rental News had an interesting article recently on December 20, 2013 titled; "U.S. Car Rental Market Achieves Record Revenue," which stated; "In 2012, the U.S. car rental industry is expected to achieve record total rental revenues of $23.63 billion at a total fleet size of almost 1.86 million vehicles."

Since more and more people are renting cars, doing car sharing, and these rental agencies are buying up more cars to run them for the 20,000 - 30,000 miles, that means they will start to become available and more prevalent by mid-2013 and by 2014 there will be plenty to choose from. Therefore, if you'd like to get one of these cars, you might not have to pay the full price, rather you can just buy a used rental.

One thing about buying a rental car at an auto auction is that they have been maintained fairly well, even if the miles were hard miles, as you can imagine most people that rent cars do not necessarily take care of them, or baby them like someone else would who bought it new and had to pay for it themselves.

Still, I thought you might like to know because this could be a very good option for you if you'd like to get a high MPG vehicle at a substantially lower price off the normal MSRP. Please consider all this and think on it.


Source : EzineArticles

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    has launched a new provocative series of eBooks on Automotive Concepts. Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank.

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