In 1910, at a public event in London, an Irish inventor named Louis Brennan unveiled a new type of train that seemed to defy the laws of physics. The vehicle could remain perfectly balanced on a single rail, even at a complete standstill. It could also tilt on the curves without losing speed.
That day was the culmination of years of work. Brennan unveiled his first patent for a gyroscopic monorail in 1903. However, it wasn’t until 1907 that he completed his prototype. According to the British Museum of Science, the prototype was only 30 inches long and 12 inches wide, but worked.
A Train That Promised to Be Revolutionary
The engineer even set up a full-scale test track to get funding for the project. Because the vehicle was so small, Brennan enlisted the help of his young daughter, who served as a passenger in the demonstrations. The British War Office was interested in the concept and commissioned Brennan to build a full-scale prototype.
Although Brennan had successfully created a fully functional small prototype, he had to make several adjustments to the project as he developed the final model, which would weigh multiple tons. The secret of the train was a gyroscope that used angular momentum to keep the train balanced. Since the train could derail on curves, he added a second gyroscope.
The inventor connected the two orientation devices with a gear that prevented them from rotating in the same direction. The 40-foot-long prototype began to take shape. Brennan then added a motor to drive the gyroscopes and made other improvements to the system to correct the position, details he described in later patents.
Brennan finally completed the gyroscopic monorail in 1909. It was 40 feet long, weighed 22 tons, and could carry up to 15 tons. Although it had a 20-horsepower gasoline engine, its creator didn’t connect it directly to the transmission system. Instead, it drove a generator, which powered two trucks and both gyroscopes.
For a few weeks, the train ran in tests around the factory. In 1910, it was officially unveiled to the public at the Japanese-British Exhibition at the White City in London, where future UK Prime Minister Winston Churchill was present. However, despite Brennan’s attempts to highlight all its virtues, the project didn’t receive the necessary investment to continue.
The inventor claimed that the gyroscopic monorail required only half the railroad equipment installed on the tracks. He even designed it to use the existing infrastructure (one side of the tracks). However, the fact that each car, in addition to the locomotive, had to have a complex system of gyroscopes was one of the reasons that eventually killed the project.
Image | Wikimedia Commons
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