Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 139, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 June 1917 — ULTRA HIGH-SPEED RAILWAY LOCOMOTION [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ULTRA HIGH-SPEED RAILWAY LOCOMOTION

How would you like to be able to breakfast in New York city and lunch in San Francisco on the same day? This is one of the possibilities of the day thart science may soon make a reality by enabling engineers to construct an electric railway over which trains will rush at the unprecedented speed of 500 miles an hour, which is at the rate of eight and one-third miles per minute. An electric railway capable of developing such a marvellous speed is One of the problems that is engrossing some of the master minds of the science of engineering of two continents/" This matter was broached by Prof. Boris Petrovlk Weinberg, instructor in mechanical engineering at the Imperial university of Petrograd, at the recent New York meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Professor Weinberg has even built a model of his proposed 500-mlle-per-hour-electric railway. Ultra High Speed System. As a matter of fact, scientists have evolved a system for ultra high speed railway locomotion, as great 'as 500 miles an hour, by utilizing the little known method of eliminating friction by what electrical engineers call “electro-magnetic levitation,” which was developed by Emile Bachelet, a former resident of Mount Vernon, N. Y„ but now engaged In reasearch work in England. _ The underlying principle of electromagnetic levitation, as followed out by the Bachelet floating railroad system, is readily understood by referring to the accompanying illustra-

tions in which are shown in Fig. 2, an electro-magnet coil M and an aluminum ring R. Scientists have discovered that passing an alternating (rapidly changing from positive to negative and vice versa) current through the magnet coil will produce, in turn, an alternating or constantly changing magnetic field. Such a field will repel sheetsujr rings of copper or aluminum, owing to the eddy currents which are set up' in them, the phase of these eddy currents being retarded by their self-induction. Hence, if the electro-magnet M is excited by an alternating current as in Fig. 2, and if the aluminum ring R Is held lightly just above the pole of the magnet, the alternating magnetic field will react in the manner just described, and forcibly propel the ring upward, causing It to assume the position Indicated by the dotted ring.

Again, if the aluminum ring is held by four cords and the alternating current passed through the magnet coil, the ring will remain floating in space above the magnet as shown. Scientists also know that It Is possible to arrange an electro-magnet of proper proportions between two horizontal aluminum plates, and that when excited by an alteranting current, the reaction of the-magnetic flux set up w’ill lift the magnet coll above the lower aluminum plate, and also cause the upper aluminum plate to be levitated, or raised above the coll. Revolutionizing Idea. According to a writer In Electrical Experimenter, this Is the germ of the revolutionizing idea In railroad locomotives. This authority says that by simply placing the levitated magnets within the car and constructing the lower rail of properly spaced aluminum Inductor sections It would become feasible to construct such a levitated" railroad, at various points along which suitable ring-shaped solenoids or hollow tubular electro-mag-nets could be placed to propel or pull the car forward. The accompanying diagram. Fig. 1. shows several details of the levitated electric railroad which, It- Is believed, would work out successfully, if the engineering details are properly taken dire of. -. 1 The car itself Is described in

Electrical Experimenter as being patterned after the modern Zeppelin flying machine, having th® front end In the form of a hyperbola and the rear end tapered off, so as to offer the least possible resistance to the air as the car shoots forward at the rate of 500 miles per hour. A series of powerful levitating elec-tro-magnets are mounted under the floor and within the shell of the car as shown. A high-tension alternating’ current is supplied over feed wires carried on cross arms at the top of the tubular track system, and this current could be taken into the car through special contact shoes or wheels on'either side of the car body; this alternating current being excite the levitating magnets for lilting the car from the track. Material for Road Bed. The road bed is built up of a specially designed aluminum inductor rail, with a lower sub-rail of iron at station approaches. A small storage battery could be carried at the rear of the car so that in slowing down or stopping, instead of exciting the levitating magnets with alternating current they could be charged with direct current from the storage battery, and thus a greater frictional es-. feet produced between the moving car and the rail. The flux from the el££-tro-magnets within the car would, in this case, react on the iron sub-rail. The car would—be propelled forward by means of powerful electric solenoids placed along the track. The details of switching, etc., are not given, as there are several different ways in which this could be taken care of, but

in some of the schemes developed in this direction, the opening and closing of the solenoid circuits as the car progresses on its way, is functioned or cared for by the movement of the car itself. In other w r ords the car, as it moves along, passes over a set of elecSrical contacts placed between solenoid points, so that the solenojd is deenergized just as the car approaches it; the momentum of the car carrying it forward owing to the powerful magnetic pull of the solenoid which had acted on the car a brief instant before. • ——f'7 ■--r—r: -7

tig. 1. The 500-Mile-an-Hour Electric Train of the Future Will Be of the Levitated Type in Which Powerful Electro-Magnets Within the Car Raise It Above the Track, While Properly Spaced Solenoids Pull the Car Along.

pi fl> 2. How “Electro-Magnetic Levitation” Is Developed as a Propelling Power by Placing an Aluminum Rjng Over an Alternating Current, Magnet M, Which Forces Upward the Ring R.