Vintage work crew photos

[Frank S]

those are some tall extension ladders

[suther51]

Arm strong man lift, mark one.
Eric

[hemmjo]

I love those extension ladders on the wheeled carts!! I wonder if they are OSHA approved??

[rlm98253]

Workers with acrophobia need not apply.

[Jon]

Postmen riding pentacycles. 1882.

Fullsize image: https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/h...w_fullsize.jpg

[Frank S]

Not sure but I think I would have rather used a horse those pentacycles would be fine on smooth paved or hard dirt roads but where would you find a smooth paved road most paved roads of the time were paved with planks or cobble stones and dirt is only hard when it is neither too dry or wet. It would take a lot of leg muscles to go up very much of a grade and hard to hold back going down.
Still the pentacycles would have been much more stable than the 2 wheeled high wheeler's of the time.

[PJs]

I would think the front axle is a bit too spindly for rough roads as well as steering, and the rear axle isn't much bigger. But then again Edward Burstow was an Architect!

[hemmjo]

wait a minute... the post office is a branch of the government, right? That may explain the impractical use of those cool looking old contraptions to deliver mail...

[Jon]

I must wonder if the unusual pentacycle style is justified by the outboard mail carrying baskets.

[Frank S]

When I first saw the picture my first thought was somebody put training wheels on a high wheeler