Reply With Quotelooks like a rube goldberg accident waiting to happen.
This propeller-powered monorail would have linked London to Paris
Scottish inventor George Bennie had a dream. Where trains couldn't link destinations separated by water, grand railways would stretch through the skies, guiding propeller-powered planes from city to city.
Technically, the Bennie Railplane isn't actually a monorail; to the contrary, it requires both a top and bottom rail to guide its propeller-powered planes. But like a monorail, the Railplane was meant to be a transit system deliberately separated from the ground-based one. Feeling that carrying freight and passengers along the same rails was inefficient, Bennie proposed these suspended rails that would carry passenger-only planes. He also thought it would be a brilliant way to carry passengers across the English Channel, making commutes from London to Paris fast and easy.
http://io9.com/5915280/this-propelle...ondon-to-paris
looks like a rube goldberg accident waiting to happen.
Swift. Safe. Sure. Yip, would have been far better than the Chunnel.
They built and ran it over a test track and few could fault it but money was tight at point in time.
Some good photos: http://dewi.ca/trains/bennie/index.html
those rails look like an eyesore and probably cost 400 times more to build than regular train tracks on the ground.
Here's my proposal to separate freight transport from person transport: build them side by side, not over and under.
The cost of expanding the rail bed in the UK was much higher than in Europe and the US at the time and double decking was seen as cost effective on certain stretches so light overhead passenger rail seemed like a winner.Originally Posted by Xaito
Mighty fine idea if you want to stop all maritime traffic in the channel...
The last of the Raygun Gothic. The future that never came to be. All gone except on some pencil sharpeners and some diners and a certain kind of RV. Hugo Gernsback must have been all over this baby!
On the subject of "railplanes", the Schienenzeppelin bears mentioning as well:
The Schienenzeppelin or rail zeppelin was an experimental railcar which resembled a zeppelin airship in appearance. It was designed and developed by the German aircraft engineer Franz Kruckenberg in 1929. Propulsion was by means of a propeller located at the rear, it accelerated the railcar to 230.2 km/h (143.0 mph) setting the land speed record for a petrol powered rail vehicle. Only a single example was ever built, which due to safety concerns remained out of service and was finally dismantled in 1939.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schienenzeppelin
^Never knew about the existence of Schienenzeppelins. Wicked things.
First target of the Luftwaffe.
They should have built a roller (coast to) coaster across the channel.
Doesn't have a prop , but it actually works to this day...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuppertal_Schwebebahn
There is a similar train in Wuppertal Germany
You beat me to it! I have been on this one.Doesn't have a prop , but it actually works to this day...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuppertal_Schwebebahn
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