Why the Railplane Totally Failed

have a look at this old photograph of an unusual suspended monil powered by literal airplane propellers what you're seeing here is the railane a high-speed vehicle that would have moved passengers across great distances at Double the speed of most modern trains today and although This brilliant concept was demonstrated with great success its wider implementation was crushed by crooked businessmen whose comparatively impotent ideas would have vanished from the face of the Earth had they been challenged by this cuttingedge technology even so traces of the rail plane exist in modern times and today we uncover that forgotten past so join me as we discover the story of the Lost rail plane I'm your host Ryan soash and you're watching its history the locomotive was a technological innovation that completely changed the world it allowed us to carry Goods and people Overland quickly and from the onset inventors had been looking for ways to optimize the concept further resulting in some very bizarre ideas and once the industry realized it would face competition from other forms of travel such as planes and trucks the railroads sought ways to rival high speeds well at the same time maintaining safety and competitiveness in fact there was so much experimentation that over a 100 years ago people thought the 21st century would be dominated by high-speed monil a safe fast and reliable means of transportation however if we're being honest here in the scale of history there really haven't been that many breakthroughs monor rails just really never caught on the way that people had hoped but it wasn't for a lack of trying even if many inventors worked hard during the first half of the 20th century to make it reality one of the most exciting experiments was George Benny's rail plane an elevated monil that hung from an overhead rail but moved using front and rear propellers the idea of using propellers on trains was not unique in fact contemporary examples of this technology existed in both Germany and Russia long before Benny's rail plane existed expressly German hair Paul krukenberg fitted an air scrap propeller to a passenger coach in 1930 powered by a 600 horsepower engine the propeller moved the coach down a stretch of prepared track at over 140 mph however brenberg didn't take any chances and had the coach run along a straight track with no curves for had it had curves it would have flown off the rails the results of these experiments also encouraged inventors to study the problems with High-Speed Rail demonstrating that the problem was confined to the tracks not the locomotives realizing these limitations LED inventors to develop brand new ideas that differed from conventional Railways the idea of suspension rail also wasn't unique in fact it was one of the ways Engineers sought to build monals suspended by a fixed tracks as opposed to the cable used by aerial trams the first passenger carrying suspension Railway was used as early as 1825 in the town of hardford Shire patented four years earlier by Henry Robinson Palmer this horsedrawn Carriage was built to carry bricks but as an opening stunt it carried passengers instead it took another 50 years before a steam powered monreal was demonstrated at the US s IAL Exposition this variation was an ornately designed double-decker vehicle designed by General Leroy Stone but it was more of a Fairground attraction than an attempt at revitalizing Transportation then a decade later the Enos electric Railway an electric powered monreal was demonstrated at the draft electric company in Greenville New Jersey it was composed of lightweight steel wagons suspended from an elevated open steel frame by but was never expanded the design of its rail frame likely influenced civil engineer Eugene langden of Cologne Germany inventor of the famous shivaan suspension Railway still in use today built in 1901 this monoral has run along the vental river for over a century surviving two world wars and as amazing as these advancements were onean beged the question what would happen if you were to combine a monor rail with an airplane George Benny was born on August the 29th 1892 in alhouse near Glasgow Scotland he was born to a wealthy family and was the second of four children to John Benny the co-owner of the star engine works engineering company and his second wife Elizabeth gisby George Benny served in the Army Service Corp during World War I as a private with the service number RTS 3794 in the remount section he was shipped at out to France on August the 20th 1914 where he was a regular and ultimately was awarded the 1914 star for a service while in France the remount section was responsible for purchasing and handling horses and mules which moved several times and was comprised of Depot of over 3,000 animals on March the 5th 1916 Benny transferred to the Royal flying Corps as an air mechanic with the service number 2632 one and critical to the story of the railane this is where Benny learned about aerospace engineering in fact when the RFC became the Royal Air Force in April of 1918 he was classified as a fighter after the war ended Benny began to focus more on his interest he always had been intrigued by rail travel and in 1920 he examined an early steam engine deciding that trains would be more efficient if they traded Coal Power for propellers and a year later Benny applied for patent for his new railane system he started on development immediately as news of his invention began to spread the problem Benny wanted to solve was that passenger trains were often bogged down by slow moving Freight he aimed to provide rapid transit for passengers mail and other light non-bulky Freight through his railane Benny envisioned it as a combination of an airplane and a locomotive an aircraft that flew on Rails he described this concept in his system of aerial transport patent as a propeller driven Carriage suspended by an upper Rail and guided by a lower rail with only a single bogey above trucks with four to six wheels would support the weight of the carriage at rest and slow speeds in motion Wing air foils at either end of the car would lift the vehicle off the tracks increasing its efficiency by reducing friction this would allow gradients in other words any rising or fall falling in the direction of the movement along the track these gradients could be as steep as 1 and 25 or 4% to be easily overcome due to no wheel adhesion from the car's weight being necessary to drive it Forward heavy and expensive Earthworks Bridges tunnels and dams could be eliminated thanks to this great technology for Corners a bogey on the lower rail would guide the car to prevent swaying waving away any need for barriers and Hills that tilt ordinary trains towards the inside of the curve to avoid derailing this construction of bogies made it impossible for the rail plane to be derailed this vehicle would be capable of high speeds and operate independently from standard rail Transportation the propellers driving the rail plane could be powered by internal combustion engines or electric motors powered via an electrified rail so with the help of consultant engineer Hugh Fraser Benny's dream became a reality after 9 hard years of work a prototype rail plane and track was erected over a disused London and Northeastern Railway siding leading to the burb die Works near Glasgow tside bridge and engineering company built the elevated tracks which were a lattice box gerder construction with vertical clearance of 16 ft above the railway the standard Bridge clearance at the time it was 425 ft long with each of its five spans and the Arches between its supports being 80 ft long this allowed for a minimal amount of ground to be occupied additionally these types of tracks could also incorporate utilities such as telephone and electricity the railane test car was made by William beardmore company and the framework was constructed with a lightweight aluminum copper alloy and a steel kill covered in an aluminum skin in total the railane weighed 12,000 lb or 6 tons was 8 ft in diameter and was 52 2 ft long complete with 9 ft long four bladed air screw propellers on both ends of the carriages to move it along the line electric motors were used and received their power through the rail providing a continuous 60 horsepower at 1,200 RPM but it should be pointed out that they were also capable of short bursts of 240 horsepower for up to 30 seconds braking was handled by reversing the propeller's rotation and having the Bogies grip the rails two wheels in the engineers cab had complete control of the car and were outfitted with both hand and automatic braking power however the test car differed from the patent lacking air foils to lift the railane and adding a second bogey to suspend the vehicle the bogeys also had rubber inserts and laminated Springs somewhat similar to the leaf springs used in car suspension to reduce noise and vibration throughout the ride the these Springs also controlled how hard the bogeys gripped the rails and could be adjusted to suit the service conditions the deceleration rate for example could be set equal to that of a London Omnibus which was about four times stronger than the deceleration allowed in Railways since the railane doesn't rely on adhesion Between the Wheels and the rails to drive itself forward its weight could be reduced to a minimum this would reduce the effects of side winds and swaying during turns at high speeds all this caused the track resistance to be very small well the test car may have weighed 6 tons someone could quickly and easily push it along the track with just a single hand as the total track resistance was only 48 l no expense was spared for the interior of the car the entrance was adorned with stained glass sliding doors in the style of renie Macintosh and the 24 seat passenger area was outfitted with Waring and Gilla armchairs the decor consisted of thick carpets table lamps and curtained windows The Carriage was white and streamlined in a cigar shape for minimal air resistance causing journalists to liken it to that of a blimp or Zeppelin throughout construction George Benny kept an eye on the track and the train ensuring they were built to his specifications in all the car looked like a smooth luxurious pod be fitting to its growing reputation as the mode of travel from the future on July the 8th 1930 the railane line was officially opened to the Press select members of the public and potential clients Benny claimed it was the fastest safest and cheapest Land Transportation attracting people worldwide passengers entered the rail plane by way of a tiny elevated station platform and although the rides were short they efficiently demonstrated the service that a completed rail line would provide it was noted that the ride was smooth in acceleration and very comfortable and surprisingly there was very little noise from the propellers except at the start without any additional noise from the Turning wheels or whistling steam engines and the minimal air disturbance inside the car itself the railane was quieter than a luxury train in fact many recall that they couldn't even tell the rail plane was moving unless they looked outside of the vehicle's window Benny gave many demonstrations while interest was running at an all-time high overall the response was positive and most were impressed by its potential as a means of safe and Rapid Transportation many companies showed interest in Benny's idea especially since he planned to build a railroad track above existing lines minimizing his invention's cost land use and environmental impact the only land needed would be the comparatively small concrete pads for the track frame frame support quick passenger trains would fly through the air above while slow and heavy Goods would travel on the freight trains below furthermore the same railane cars could be used for short Suburban trips or long non-stop runs with no limit on the rate of acceleration except for the comfort of the passengers and crew while the track wasn't long enough to test for it Benny believed that his rail plane cars could travel at speeds as high as 120 mph and with a few tweaks they could go far beyond that with better engines and propellers each vehicle could also carry a maximum of 48 people although the Prototype had seats for Less when making the railane car into a complete train cars could be coupled with a device that revolves around the propeller shafts therefore a single engineer in the lead rail plane would control all the propellers this would allow each of the cars to be driven by its propellers allowing maximum efficiency and not needing to have a massive Cru room it had the speed of air travel with none of the problems associated Southern Railways also expressed interest in a London to Cen airport link as well as a line between Edinburgh and Glasgow there were even plans to create a high-speed link between London and Paris with a c plane that carried the passengers across the English Channel The Rail plane would be a GameChanger as these trips would be completed in nearly half the time they take today but those plans would never come to be despite interest from around the globe Penny couldn't get the financial backing needed to develop his revolutionary transport system and it also needs to be considered that if it weren't for the worst economic crisis in modern history the Great Depression the rail plane likely would have been made you see this crisis affected the United States and the World At Large due to the world's economy being linked to the gold standard it didn't help that many European countries relied on American financing after after World War I but with World War II on the horizon no one could even think of financing a brand new mode of transportation another reason the rail plane failed to take off was that other companies were afraid it was too efficient and that it would put them out of business between 1926 and 1929 Benny repeatedly sought permission to build railane tracks over Southern Railway service between London and Brighton but to no effect in 1931 Benny had raised enough money to build a 20m railway from hbor to croon airport but was Again rebuffed by Southern Railways which was worried about the loss of revenue from their existing service to croon but as Government interest in the rail plane grew Southern Railway offered to build a line running from London Bridge to Dartford via lewisham still Benny turned it down because he only wanted that line to the airport another investor Henry boot proposed building two New Towns at walham Abbey and and dagenham both linked to Central London by rail plane but this plan didn't get off the ground with an ambivalent Southern Railway and few investors volunteering to support the transport system the company Benny set up to promote the railway ousted him from the firm in 1936 having financed most of the project himself sinking 150,000 which would be5 million today Benny now found himself with without anything to show for all of his hard work by 1937 he sold his interest in the development company and was declared bankrupt experiments on the railplan Prototype continued without his supervision but never got far enough to be introduced into passenger Transportation eventually the project was abandoned and the railane track was demolished in 1941 with all known components being donated to wartime scrap metal campaigns Benny and the company he founded continued to work on new ways to promote the rail plane but the situation was financially dire not only did Ben need help to get by but at this point he was living in shared housing he again suggested a rail plane link from the center of London to the airport an idea which at this point became something of an obsession in support of that Obsession in 1946 he founded the George Benny AirSpeed Railway which was in turn followed by subsidiary companies but by 1950 1 all of these Ventures failed to deliver any results the Prototype rail plane lay rusting in a field at milgi for decades the car's once Grand interior was gutted until it was sold for scrap and parts in 1956 sadly George Benny died in a nursing home a year later alone and in obscurity at the age of 65 without a penny to his name and his story has nearly been forgotten today a 20-minute silent video of George Benny's rail plane can be found on the National Library of Scotland's website filmed in 1929 and 1930 it features the opening stretch of track and the rail plane in motion the original shed where the railplan car was built on Main Street is now occupied by a Timber Merchant and has a blue commemorative plaque on the outside wall but George Benny and his railplan still left a stamp on Modern public transportation you see in 1947 the renowned French bridge builder Lucient chadson became interested in the Benny railplan project he was also impressed by the Paris Metro Route 11 which began to use rubber tires in 1956 chadson combined the two ideas resulting in a suspended monil in which the Bogies were protected from the weather by a steel or concrete box beam above the Train the test track made with this prototype operated for many many years in the south of Paris it was also featured in the film adaptation of Fahrenheit 451 chadson would lead further developments of the suspended monoral in the 60s working with saage a French Consortium saage would become one of the Premier types of suspended monoral later adopted by both Japan and the United States modern monals are just catching up to Benny's Vision with High-Speed Rail passenger trains traveling at over 120 mes per hour and cruising at over 200 mph hs2 a High-Speed Rail Project in the UK also plans to build a new mon rail over existing Railway service four new saage style suspended Railway prototypes have been developed since 2010 by 2016 China had created three lines and to the North in Russia another prototype was also established but beyond that we are only left with this mindboggling image of a futuristic con concept from a bygone time and we'll leave it there for today but I thank you all for watching hope you'll consider subscribing and until next time I'm Ryan soash signing off

Channel: IT'S HISTORY

Views: 112,965

Keywords: railplane, bennie, george bennie railplane, airplane, george bennie, railplanes, benny railplane, 1929. railplane innovation, airplane shorts, benni, george bennie technology, rail plane, plane, planes, england rail, aeroplane, trains and planes, aeroplanes, scotland rail, schienenzepplin, abandoned planes, new zealand, rail, george benning, abandoned train, indian railways, rails, engine, failed, young banjo player, railway, unintentional asmr, failure

Id: OaMciM_HSBo

Length: 20min 9sec (1209 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 11 2024