300 MILES AN HOUR.

Mataura Ensign, 15 May 1912, Page 5

300 MILES AN HOUR.

RAILWAY FOR PARCELS. Great attention has been paid to a demonstration given in New York by Eraile Bachelet, an electrical engineer, of an invention for overcoming gravity, and permitting cars to slide through the air at a speed of 300 miles an hour without encountering friction except air resistance. M. Bachelet is a Frenchman who has been working on his invention in America for the last 18 years. The basis of his discovery is the fact that while a direct electro-magnetic current attracts metals, an alternating current exercises a powerful repellent force upon some metals, particularly aluminium . M. Bachelet showed the invention at work in his factory at Mount Vernon, a suburb of New York, where he constructed an elevated railway 31 feet long. Instead of the regulation railway slee'pers there were electro magnets placed at intervals of a foot. On the magnets rested a cigar-shaped steel plate of aluminium, which was in direct contact with the magnets. When an alternating current of 100 volts was turned on, the car rose half an inch, being levitated solely hv the repellent electrical current acting on the aluminium. A current of 220 volts sent the car an inch higher, where it remained steady. It was held in position by Tipper and lower guide rails, with which it was connected by brushes. They sustained, says the 'Express,' none of the weight of the car, but were used only to keep it steady on a given course when it moved. At opposite ends of the elevated structure were two coil magnets. By turning a direct electric current into ono of these magnets the car moved through the air like a projectile shot from a gun. It was stopped by shutting off the electro magnetic attraction. M. Bachelet says that the invention is particularly adapted for transmitting letters or parcels over a, long distance. 1