Why the Railplane Totally Failed
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- Опубліковано 10 кві 2024
- The Bennie Railplane, conceived by Scottish engineer George Bennie in the early 1930s, was a pioneering transportation concept to revolutionize urban travel. This innovative design envisioned a streamlined, elevated rail system with lightweight carriages suspended from an overhead track, powered by electric motors. Bennie's vision sought to alleviate traffic congestion and provide a faster, more efficient mode of transportation. Despite successful test runs and considerable public interest, the Railplane faced financial and logistical challenges, ultimately leading to its demise. Though the Railplane never achieved widespread adoption, it remains a fascinating chapter in the history of transportation innovation, showcasing its creator's bold ideas and ingenuity.
» CREDIT
Scriptwriter - Dillan Aultimate
Host - Ryan Socash
Music/Sound Design: Dave Daddario
» NOTICE
Some images may be used for illustrative purposes only - always reflecting the accurate time frame and content. Events of factual error / mispronounced word/spelling mistakes - retractions will be published in this section.
That car was a work of art. It should have been preserved in a museum.
Whatever you say Professor Jones.
I first heard of the Bennie Railplane way back when I was a kid, because his test track for it was only a few miles from our family home. Probably one of the first times as a youngster that I realised that history didn't just happen very long ago in faraway places, but right on your doorstep too.
So much of humanity is wasted on greed.
The Root of all evil is the love of $
Thank you, Ryan...once again, a Real Treat...my Father took me in 1954, aged 10, to see the Prototype in the Field near Milngavie...it was Falling Apart by then...apparently my Uncle had worked on the Designs for Mr Bennie...dgp/uk
Thank you for sharing this story! Looks like you had a first hand experience with that!
"passenger trains were bogged down by freight", something that has yet to be solved
And the rail companies still don't want to really share the track with them.
Amtrak should try this. Signed, Professor Jones
It has been in Europe.
For information: Hertfordshire is a county not a town. Hertford is a town in Hertfordshire.
A nice Video, well explained. However I think the railplane failed because of a fatal design flaw: The small cars of the prototype may have been easy to accelerate and move, however with a 3-digit passenger capacity, the prop drive would have caused an awful storm in the station during acceleration. All successful transport systems have been scaled to high passenger capacity.
Concorde was successful
Also, the power delivery is lossy. Why connect your transaxle to a fan and push air? Why not just directly deliver effort to the rail?
@@Johnketes54 no, it wasnt.
@@MarceloBenoit-trenes Explain yourself? It ran for years and let down by the French, More import my 12 year old friend, Explain to me in more than one word why you consider it as a failure?
@@slackerman9758 Friction? 48 pounds to push it
I love it! Of course we have no idea of the accidents, the bankruptcies, the corner-cutting and the sloppy maintenance which occurred in the parallel universe where Bennie's eye-catching steampunk railplanes were built. But this has the feel of an "It could easily have been".
Yes the narrative crumbles into one of debt and obsession and loneliness and it is a tragedy that there are so few artefacts left of this extraordinary hope. It is, overall, a thing of delight and pride to be part of a species where some of us not only envision such dreams but pursue them even into tragedy.
Thank you for knowing about this and sharing it.
The problem as I see it is any track failures are catastrophic and a death sentence.
So no different than regular rail lol
I love these train videos, the buildings ones as well. Another instant classic, great job Ryan
Thank you very much!
Maintenance, after a few years, would have been a nightmare after the steel gridwork started to rust out.
At least traditional trains are supported by the ground, and derailments are generally easy to deal with. The railplane would fall out of the sky like.... a plane....
On top of that if the engine fails that passengers would be stuck up there. Too high up for ladders.
@@dannydaw59 Not an issue, as the development of cable cars shows us. You get people out using a trapdoor and rope system, or if the system is running above an area where this is not possible, use a helicopter.
it will be so pricey to maintain the rail itself. thus conventional train on land rails will still be around. this is why conventional trains will be nostalgic no matter how far the technologies goes - land monorails, maglev etc.
There's a lot of upside to this idea. Could be put over existing rail rights-of-way or have covered walking/cycling/driving underneath. Low snow- clearing costs too. Damn shame.
Also, it's "Fahrenheit four five one" and not "Fahrenheit four fifty one." I don't know why actually.
Dead giveaway. He's a Bot.🤣
Should put one right down the middle of most interstates. make the stations at the overpasses.
Hertfordshire is a county not a town. A county consists of many towns. Same way Yorkshire is not a town but it consists of the town of York. Same with Hertfordshire as its main town is Hertford.
Yorkshire consists of more than the town of York . . .
@@EllieMaes-Grandad you kno what I mean. Don’t be pedantic.
@@WangoBango No, I don't 'know'. I see so many errors on YT. Do it right, or don't do it.
@@EllieMaes-Grandad shh grandad
The Wuppertal train is the one that inspired Walt Disney to create the monorail at Disneyland, but the swaying made his wife, Lilian, sick, so that’s why he made his train ride on top of the rail!
Another great story. Thanks.
These days, if you invent anything that gets in the way of their profits, they will find you no longer consuming oxygen.
Something truly ahead of its time.
4:15 The river the Schwebebahn hangs over is called the Wupper river.
Wuppertal is the name of the whole city.
Wupper being the name of the river and Tal meaning valley in german.
So the city is called valley of the Wupper or Wupper Valley.
If you combine this concept with Logie-Baird's mechanical scanning television system
you realize the Brits are great at CONTRAPTIONS !!!... Look at how much structure must be built for this thing to travel the distance of one car length.
Thank you so much for this video. Very cool idea and I would have love to have seen this go.
You are so welcome!
The Railplane and track were not demolished during WW2; they survived until 1956. The maximum speed it reached was 55mph, limited by the length of the track. For most of its existence it had a two-bladed propellor ot one end and a four-bladed one at the other. The motors were rated at 100hp and ran on 500v. 120 mph would have been achieved on a longer track. The track construction was similar to (but lighter than) the Wuppertal Schwebebahn, which has been in operation for over a century. Bennie was not a trained engineer and the design work was done by Hugh Fraser. There is an extensive archive on the project at the University of Glasgow library.
In 1930 the railways were congested with slow-moving local services and freight. Road transport was under-developed compared to rail. This was a serious proposal for high speed passenger travel in its time, confounded by vested interests and economic depression.
What a sad end to this man and his ideas.
I think the railcar was in fact still in position until shortly before its demolition in 1956 - I actually saw it moving, just once, around 1952. Some of these soldiers shown seem anything but British ! But well done with such a thorough explanation of what is quite a sad story.
I've never heard of this before
It's truly unfortunate the obstacles that prevented this from going forward. Shows just how much power and influence that the major existing railways had during that time. Not to mention that The Great Depression played a big part that he seemingly overcame eventually. I honestly believe it's something that would & could still be used today if it had only been able to take off. Thanks Ryan for bringing this to us!
It was a nonsensical dead end
Still more viable than hyperloop :D
If you set the bar low enough any idea can look good 🤣
Looks like a gadgetbahn to me, and likely would have never worked.
The LNER Class A4 (Mallard) came out at around the same time, and could do 126mph on conventional track.
As well as being very expensive to construct the track for this over any significant distance, I don't see how points [switches] would have worked on it, so you couldn't have any branches on the line.
I wish we had this or something similar now. Only a handful of cities in the US have mass transit other that buses… As the powers that be made it so😑😔😡
To do what? This was a failure, too expensive, low transport capacity, high maintenance...
Very cool story, thanks for telling it.
his goal to my knowledge was to have high speed and transporting people knowing if he was still alive to see bullet and high speed trains he would be happy for that
Thank you for this excellent documentary. I´m afraid it was just another case of a creative visionary being defeated by politicians and rivals.
Hertfordshire is a county, not a town.
A very interesting and fascinating story.
Looks like too much infrastructure and way too many metals, sorry I disagree with this. 😢
This is great historical insight. Thank you.
Now can we get this running from Seattle to Philly? I'd pay for a pass.
Very noisy for urban use.
Sshhhh .
@@abbush2921 😄
At 11:53 you show a newspaper clip that says in a trial run the railplane "covered the 30 miles in exactly 15 minutes". Yet the test track was only 130m (and not c. 1800ft as you earlier claimed).
I used to work that line as a guard in the 80's. The one on the ground.
So friggin interesting! 👍🏻
Was this the precursor of the Hovertrain which itself was rendered obsolete by MAGLEV?
Surprised you didn't mention The Meigs Elevated Railway in Cambridge, Mass as well in the opening section. I would suspect this system couldn't be easily scaled up. Switching trains between right-of-ways would be complicated (one of the reasons monorails in general haven't replace traditional railways) & How effective would the props be in intermediate coaches? I would imagine the air currents disrupted by the lead prop would diminish the efficacy of the props in the middle.
Slow down, you move to fast; you've got to make the morning last.
Interesting technology back then
They just required fad too much extra raised metal rail suspension system.
That is solely due to not understanding aerodynamics/fluid dynamics.
$4 million on railing 1 million on the car itself 😂
good quality educational
A lighter vehicle will be much more affected by side winds than a heavier one of the same size. Also the bridges etc would still have to be built strong enough to support the full weight of the train. Otherwise if there was an engine failure the structure would collapse when the lift being generated stopped.
Elon could have built it on 240km high piers to achieve cheep vacuum but i don't think even hyper propellers would work up there .
Cool idea, but i think the cost of the infrastructure would have crippled this idea. Look how much metal goes into the framework.
Also, that was the closest to correct I've ever heard anyone pronounce "Milngavie" without them living nearby 😅
that's true but his goal was to have high speed and transporting people knowing if he was still alive to see bullet and high speed trains he would be happy for that
Remember Elon’s failed Hyperloop concept?
Hey Mr. Socash
I wanna say lamb chops 🤔
Yeah that's a real puzzler
The railplane failed because it wasn't a very good idea.
All that metal work just to carry one or two cars! Not cost effective, plus the visual impact of this structure especially in the countryside would not tolerated! NIMBYism at its best! Note local trains in the UK can be up to 12cars long, plus High speed trains up to 18cars long, I have no idea how Mr Bennie expected to make this system pay?.
This gadgetbahn is another level.
Congratulations on pronouncing Milngavie correctly.
the guy was a success ----- most people die with their music still in them
5:15 What is going on on that photo???
Yes.
The guy sitting on the ground is cleaning the horse's hoof that the gentleman bending down on the right is holding. Meanwhile a colleague is standing behind the seated gentleman most likely pretending to be, but perhaps actually, cutting the hair of the seated man with mechanical shears powered by the crank being turned by the gent standing on the left of the picture. A gentleman in a cap is holding the horse's bridle while a fellow next to him idly rests on a broom
At least that's what I reckon 😊
I wanted a rail plane with actual wings which could be dirt cheap to construct because they only need to be crude and the track could only be like cables which would be real cheap as heck too!
The HS2 isn’t happening mate not up North I believe Leeds and Manchester has been dropped as it’s too expensive I live in Leeds so hear about it on the news Great videos Keep up the amazing content and thank you
Only found this out recently that the SNP had paid the tories to extend HS2 to Scotland. The money was never returned as the plan was dropped. At the time it was proposed I had family living in London so was keen on it happening. They're back up here now. Why does most of Europe have high speed trains and we're still lagging behind?
I'm starting to think that HS2 was all along a con to build a high-speed rail link just for London and the suburbs.
👍
Was this on an episode of the Simpsons?
Not in your lifetime my Hindu friend
Quite possibly!!!...dgp/uk
Lots of naysayers in this comment section. The types who would have told the Wright brothers you can't do that, told Henry Ford it's just a fad, or told NASA it's impossible to get to the moon. Their dictionaries start and end with the word can't
The moon is still untouched we ve never. Been there
You mean like hyperloop , self driving cars , cancer cures , sustainable living within planetary resources , diamond coated scratch less glass , fusion , retirement at 40 , flying cars , etc hmm yeah i`m with the naysayers , nearly all humanities `achievements` rely entirely on robbing stored resources and that bank is running out fast .
they don't want private coordinated oversight.. they need disasters & economic restrictions.. to keep people in line
Nonsense.
I wonder what Elon would do with that. 😂
The smallest amount of knowledges on Physics is more than enough to tell this design is complete nonsense.
As others have pointed out, it's still more viable than Hyperloop 😂
I wish this guy wasn’t always slipping in his activism. The great depression was not caused by the connection of money to the gold standard.
Imagine being so ignorant that you think the great depression was because of the gold standard. Imagine being so ignorant that you think over engineered propeller trains with tracks more expensive and difficult to build were the future of transportation and not just a gimmick. Imagine being that delusional.
Why? Because IT was Not Made in Germany!
I hear those things are awfully loud
Total madness, a bird chopper and making noise all around the countryside
Lightweight trains can move trough stone rails with little metal profile ( there are already pure granite trams) with wingsails or even vawt wind turbines (covered with nets) or spinakers or genaker downwind
Bit late for an April Fool's Day video?
There are lots of original films from the railplane in motion, so why do you think of an April Fools joke?
@@windharpProbably because this person is too young to have any decent thoughts!
the serpent eating its own tail.. thats our banking / government / military ... complex
what's that socash crap ?
Now if this was set up for 40 foot seacans it would be successful. Just think of it, from the shipyard right to a distribution center.