Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 198, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 August 1914 — LEVITATED TRAIN IS SPEEDY [ARTICLE]

LEVITATED TRAIN IS SPEEDY

Emile Bachelet’s Invention, at Present Designed for the Transmission of Mail Matter. The “levitated” train, the invenyon of M. Emile Bachelet, a model of which is how on exhibition in London, is designed for the transmission of letters and mall packages, in the carriage of which, it is suggested, a speed as high as 300 miles an hour might be attained. Briefly, the novelty of the invention is that the train or vehicle is lifted into the air, clear of contact with the ground or rails —e. g., what may be shortly termed magnetlo repulsion, And by magnetic attraction is pulled forward when thus suspended in the air. This action has been known as a scientific fact for a good many years. A well-known demonstration of a copper ring held over an alternating current magnet, when the ring floats suspended in the air, is commonly associated with the name of Prof. Elihu Thomson. The railroad line consists of a pair of rails about 35 feet long laid over a series of coils or bobbins. The vehicle, weighing 45 pounds, consists of an iron car or tube fastened to an aluminum bed plate. This repulsive force acting on the aluminum lifts it Instantaneously, as soon as the circuit is closed, about half an inch into the air and holds it there. But at intervals the track 1b spanned archwise by other electric magnets. The iron of the superstructure of the car responds so that the vehicle is immediately pulled toward them. The electro magnet, as soon as the car reaches it, is automatically de-ener-gized and ceases to exert any influence on the vehicle, which passes on, being pulled forward by the next magnet beyond it. Thus it travels on, from one magnet to. the next, the speed being in proportion to their number and strength. The colls or bobbins in the roadway which lift the vehicle into the air ara. excited in groups by the moving vehicle through brushes affixed to the aluminum plate and kept in contact with the live rail by springs, so that the vehicle carries its magnetic field with it, each group being energized as the car arrives at it and de-ener-gized as the car leaves 1L