You Say It's A Hovercraft Monorail?

[wallyworld]

Simply bizarre...belongs in the curio cabinet along with my flying car..

http://www.koaa.com/aaaa_top_stories/x528753458/Train-Plane-What-was-that-in-Pueblo

Some interesting history here  http://www.shonner.com/aerotrain/index.htm

 

[carnej1]

wallyworld

Simply bizarre...belongs in the curio cabinet along with my flying car..

http://www.koaa.com/aaaa_top_stories/x528753458/Train-Plane-What-was-that-in-Pueblo

Some interesting history here  http://www.shonner.com/aerotrain/index.htm

 

The French "Airtrain" system was similiar and turned out to be a technological dead end as well...The air cushion train concepts were superceded by Maglev technology (another idea "whose time has yet to come" possibly forever..)

[samfp1943]

Under the label of " What's old, is new Again"

How about George Bennie's Railplane?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7133812192638114164&ei=o1-XSvCiHYe8rAKyjriFDw&q=Bennie+Railplane&hl=en

An interesting curoisity from Scotland of the 1930's.

[Jerry Pier]

This looks like the vehicle that Rohr Industries developed and built on a contract from the DOT. It was being tested at the Pueblo Test Center in 1976 when the first RTL Turboliner was there for acceptance testing. At the time, the RTL reached 129 mph on a VIP run and the Hovercraft Monorail, which ran on linear induction power, had yet to reach 100 mph (if memory serves me).

[martin.knoepfel]

 

The German engineer Kruckenberg designed a ligthweight diesel-motor-car running on railroad tracks, powered by one propeller on the back. The dmc established a world-speed-record, but it was only intended for technical purposes. No commercial service. I wonder whether such a design would work today for high-speed-trains. At least, you have only very little unsprung weight, which reduces wear on tracks. Pictures on the Wikipedia-Site Search Kruckenberg Schienenzeppelin

[Deggesty]

carnej1

(another idea "whose time has yet to come" possibly forever..)

Yes, it seems a long time coming. Not long after he graduated in 1956, one of my college friends was reported to be working on a maglev project. I have not heard much of him lately, so I do not know if he is still working on it.

Johnny

[Deggesty]

Deggesty

carnej1

(another idea "whose time has yet to come" possibly forever..)

Yes, it seems a long time coming. Not long after he graduated in 1956, one of my college friends was reported to be working on a maglev project. I have not heard much of him lately, so I do not know if he is still working on it.

Johnny

Update on my friend--I sent a note to our physics professor (yes, he's still around more than fifty years later), asking if he knew anything about my friend's involvement, and he replied, "He pursued that project long and hard for years until it was sold out to the Germans and maybe the Chinese.  He was somewhat embittered when the US sold it out, thinking it had been pretty much done." He was working for Argonne Laboratories, in California, and still lives in Carlsbad.

Johnny