FRENCH PLAN TORPEDO

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 84, 7 February 1928, Page 6

FRENCH PLAN TORPEDO

TO CARRY THE MAIJ.S. 4 ■ ■ ■ ■■ ELECTRIC CARRIER FROM PARIS 1 TO MARSEILLES. A proposal for the construction of an electrical line by which a "mail torpedo" will carry letters, parcels and newspapers from Paris to Marseilles in two hours and a-half has been submitted to the French Government by three engineers, Louis Hirschauer, the head of the Aeronautical Service, Augustin Talon of the Midi Railway, and Professor , Leon Lecornu of the Academy of Sciences. The torpedo would pass over two pairs of rails carried high UP on steel telegraph poles, which would also serve as a trolley. The torpedo would have four Wheels f6r each track and would be fitted with special bearings intensifying its speed and stability. The cost of building the line is estimated as francs per kilometer. ; ~, Three hundred possible stops would be provided, but the torpedoes would average 400 kilometres an hour, making the complete run hi half the time required by the fastest air mail planes.