[John Webb]

The passenger car was suspended from the overhead rail by two 'bogies' one each end of the car. Wheels were deep double flanged. The rail underneath served as a guide only to prevent the car swinging excessively in strong cross-winds or when going round bends. Drive was purely by the propellers and not through the wheels; brakes took effect on the both the upper carrying rail and the lower guiderail - the propellers could also be put in reverse to assist in stopping.
Advantages claimed included:
Little ground space needed except at stations
Quick acceleration as drive did not go through wheels
Speeds of up to 200mph
(The above information comes from "Railway Wonders of the World" published in the mid-1930s.)
I believe WW2 stopped development and the line was scrapped during that war.
Regards,
John Webb

 

[John Webb]

The Accountants did not rule so strongly then, I understand. Companies were willing to look at the more innoventive ideas and take decisions to try novel things out. Nowadays this only seems to happen in micro-electronics. Civil engineering works don't bring much return on any investment, so they are not popular.

 

[John Webb]

Further to my previous postings, I just caught a repeat of one of Pete Waterman's 'Train' programmes this morning in which he mentions the monorail above. It seems that the system was put forward as a potential Victoria-Gatwick high-speed express route.
It never 'got off the ground' as it was expensive to build, and the designer was not an engineer and there were some serious technical problems. The designer (Blennie? - I didn't quite catch the name) died bankrupt in the early 1950s
Regards,
John Webb