HIGH-SPEED TRAVEL

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 November 1930, Page 10

HIGH-SPEED TRAVEL

PROPOSED RAIL-PLANE. Mr George Bennie, the inventor the rail-plane, seems to have achieved what the world has been anxiously awaiting in his combination of aerial and elevated mono-rail transport, writes Percy E. Everett in the “Melbourne Argus.” A visit to his testing laboratory, and later an inspection of the section of track already erected for experiments at Milngavie (Milgai), just outside Glasgow, convinces the least optimistic structural expert that this new system of high-speed transport may 7 be adopted within a few years in the busiest cities of the world. It would be difficult to submit a problem to Mr Bennie, or to present any anticipated difficulty in the operation of his ingenious scheme for rapid passenger traffic without obtaining a lucid explanation of each phase or detail of the system.

A number of people have travelled by air, yet many others are loth to accept the aeroplane as a means of transport. Another difficulty of aerial transport is that there is inevitably a gap to be bridged between the landing ground and the actual objective. The rail-plane could set passengers down at their most convenient railway station or at a more central terminal depot after having brought them there at more than 100 miles an hour. But the chief reason for optimism about the future of the rail-plane is the fact that, although the conquest of the air, the development of road and rail traffic, and the opening of further surface and underground routes are bound to proceed, the “speeding-up” of the increasingly heavy traffic so evident in any modern metropolitan centre appears to have reached its limit.

Many travellers have had the experience „of dangling in an aerial cable-trolley over some of the vast mountainous areas of Japan. That system of transport possesses a degree of safety dependent upon the strength of the steel wire cable. The system, however, is decidedly primitive when compared with the rail-plane. In place of the cable the light car, shaped like an airship, is suspended from a rigid overhead mono-rail structure, the factor of safety of which, with the trestles at suitable intervals, is pre-determined accurately. The sway of an aerial car is avoided by the provision of a single guiding rail beneath the car. The guide makes for comfort and safety in stormy weather and when cars pass each other at high speeds. Propellers, fore and aft, operated by electric motors or other means,' are the driving medium for the car. So gently are the stating and braking accomplished by the reversal of the air “screws” that a tumbler of water within the car remains undisturbed. The bogeys and the springing are designed to ensure smooth travel and security against a tendency to rise. Roller and ball bearings are used in all rotating parts. Pairs of patient silent wheels take the suspended loading at two points, and ingenious forms of shock absorbers are introduced. It is stated that the total friction to be overcome is 501 b. a car. Automatic electric signals and magnetic braking controls are provided. COST OF ERECTION. » The rail-plane may travel over any kind of country either in conjunction with or independent of railways. The overhead structure was perhaps the greatest economic problem to overcome at the outset. The necessity for enabling tho rail-planes to be operated above existing double railway tracks required the adoption ot the lightest possible structure consistent with safety at all speeds and security with all forms of loading with passengers. The existing railway tracks will be used as at present for heavy freight traffic. The trestles for the rail-plane have been so designed that they are almost as light as some of the trusses which carry electric cables on suburban railways. The fact that each loaded car weighs only about 12 tons enables the rail-plane structure to be erected at a low cost a mile. The cost of a double structure is estimated at £19,000 a mile, which compares favourably with other forms of-transport. Surface railways cost on an average about £60,000, and tramways about £30,000 a mile. Running costs, it is claimed, would be lower than those of any existing system of transport. Where electric current is available a service between distant centres could be established readily, but between closely related cities, as Liverpool and Manchester, or even Melbourne and Geelong, the system should prove economical also, since it leaves the existing track for the transport of freight. The problem of the break-of-gauge between the States of the Commonwealth could, it appears, be solved easily when the details of the railplane have been perfected. As an architect, I feel that aesthetic considerations would arise only where the system penetrated a town or village independent of a railway. The means of providing adequate facilities for the rail-plane tracks at such centres are, however, comparatively simple, and they would necessitate little, if any, construction that would tend to militate against architectural dignity if it were planned with discretion.