Hovertrain: Paving the Way to the Future High Speed Trains

By Fouad Sabry

What Is Hovertrain

A hovertrain is a kind of high-speed train that substitutes traditional steel wheels with hovercraft lift pads. Additionally, the standard railway bed is replaced with a paved road-like surface that is known as the track or guideway. The purpose of the idea is to reduce the complexity of the infrastructure required to install new lines while simultaneously eliminating rolling resistance and enabling very high performance. The word "hovertrain" is more of a general phrase, and the specific vehicles are often called to by the project titles under which they were created. In the United Kingdom, these vehicles are referred to as tracked hovercraft, whereas in the United States, they are known as tracked air-cushion vehicles. In France, Jean Bertin (1917-1975) was the first person to design a hovertrain. In France, these trains were marketed as the Aérotrain until the French government decided to terminate the project.

How You Will Benefit

(I) Insights, and validations about the following topics:

Chapter 1: Hovertrain

Chapter 2: Linear motor

Chapter 3: High-speed rail

Chapter 4: Hovercraft

Chapter 5: Transrapid

Chapter 6: Streamliner

Chapter 7: Maglev

Chapter 8: Hovercar

Chapter 9: Surface effect ship

Chapter 10: Aérotrain

Chapter 11: Railway speed record

Chapter 12: Ground effect train

Chapter 13: Development of the TGV

Chapter 14: URBA mass transport system

Chapter 15: Transpo '72

Chapter 16: Turbojet train

Chapter 17: ROMAG

Chapter 18: Tracked Hovercraft

Chapter 19: Krauss-Maffei Transurban

Chapter 20: Magnetic river

Chapter 21: Otis Hovair

(II) Answering the public top questions about hovertrain.

(III) Real world examples for the usage of hovertrain in many fields.

(IV) 17 appendices to explain, briefly, 266 emerging technologies in each industry to have 360-degree full understanding of hovertrain' technologies.

Who This Book Is For

Professionals, undergraduate and graduate students, enthusiasts, hobbyists, and those who want to go beyond basic knowledge or information for any kind of hovertrain.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Billion Knowledgeable
• Release date: Oct 25, 2022

Book preview

Copyright

Hovertrain Copyright © 2022 by Fouad Sabry. All Rights Reserved.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

Cover designed by Fouad Sabry.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Bonus

You can send an email to [e-mail] with the subject line Hovertrain: Paving the way to the future high speed trains, and you will receive an email which contains the first few chapters of this book.

Fouad Sabry

Visit 1BK website at

www.1BKOfficial.org

Preface

Why did I write this book?

The story of writing this book started on 1989, when I was a student in the Secondary School of Advanced Students.

It is remarkably like the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Schools, which are now available in many advanced countries.

STEM is a curriculum based on the idea of educating students in four specific disciplines — science, technology, engineering, and mathematics — in an interdisciplinary and applied approach. This term is typically used to address an education policy or a curriculum choice in schools. It has implications for workforce development, national security concerns and immigration policy.

There was a weekly class in the library, where each student is free to choose any book and read for 1 hour. The objective of the class is to encourage the students to read subjects other than the educational curriculum.

In the library, while I was looking at the books on the shelves, I noticed huge books, total of 5,000 pages in 5 parts. The books name is The Encyclopedia of Technology, which describes everything around us, from absolute zero to semiconductors, almost every technology, at that time, was explained with colorful illustrations and simple words. I started to read the encyclopedia, and of course, I was not able to finish it in the 1-hour weekly class.

So, I convinced my father to buy the encyclopedia. My father bought all the technology tools for me in the beginning of my life, the first computer and the first technology encyclopedia, and both have a great impact on myself and my career.

I have finished the entire encyclopedia in the same summer vacation of this year, and then I started to see how the universe works and to how to apply that knowledge to everyday problems.

My passion to the technology started mor than 30 years ago and still the journey goes on.

This book is part of The Encyclopedia of Emerging Technologies which is my attempt to give the readers the same amazing experience I had when I was in high school, but instead of 20th century technologies, I am more interested in the 21st century emerging technologies, applications, and industry solutions.

The Encyclopedia of Emerging Technologies will consist of 365 books, each book will be focused on one single emerging technology. You can read the list of emerging technologies and their categorization by industry in the part of Coming Soon, at the end of the book.

365 books to give the readers the chance to increase their knowledge on one single emerging technology every day within the course of one year period.

Introduction

How did I write this book?

In every book of The Encyclopedia of Emerging Technologies, I am trying to get instant, raw search insights, direct from the minds of the people, trying to answer their questions about the emerging technology.

There are 3 billion Google searches every day, and 20% of those have never been seen before. They are like a direct line to the people thoughts.

Sometimes that’s ‘How do I remove paper jam’. Other times, it is the wrenching fears and secret hankerings they would only ever dare share with Google.

In my pursuit to discover an untapped goldmine of content ideas about Hovertrain, I use many tools to listen into autocomplete data from search engines like Google, then quickly cranks out every useful phrase and question, the people are asking around the keyword Hovertrain.

It is a goldmine of people insight, I can use to create fresh, ultra-useful content, products, and services. The kind people, like you, really want.

People searches are the most important dataset ever collected on the human psyche. Therefore, this book is a live product, and constantly updated by more and more answers for new questions about Hovertrain, asked by people, just like you and me, wondering about this new emerging technology and would like to know more about it.

The approach for writing this book is to get a deeper level of understanding of how people search around Hovertrain, revealing questions and queries which I would not necessarily think off the top of my head, and answering these questions in super easy and digestible words, and to navigate the book around in a straightforward way.

So, when it comes to writing this book, I have ensured that it is as optimized and targeted as possible. This book purpose is helping the people to further understand and grow their knowledge about Hovertrain. I am trying to answer people’s questions as closely as possible and showing a lot more.

It is a fantastic, and beautiful way to explore questions and problems that the people have and answer them directly, and add insight, validation, and creativity to the content of the book – even pitches and proposals. The book uncovers rich, less crowded, and sometimes surprising areas of research demand I would not otherwise reach. There is no doubt that, it is expected to increase the knowledge of the potential readers’ minds, after reading the book using this approach.

I have applied a unique approach to make the content of this book always fresh. This approach depends on listening to the people minds, by using the search listening tools. This approach helped me to:

Meet the readers exactly where they are, so I can create relevant content that strikes a chord and drives more understanding to the topic.

Keep my finger firmly on the pulse, so I can get updates when people talk about this emerging technology in new ways, and monitor trends over time.

Uncover hidden treasures of questions need answers about the emerging technology to discover unexpected insights and hidden niches that boost the relevancy of the content and give it a winning edge.

The building block for writing this book include the following:

(1) I have stopped wasting the time on gutfeel and guesswork about the content wanted by the readers, filled the book content with what the people need and said goodbye to the endless content ideas based on speculations.

(2) I have made solid decisions, and taken fewer risks, to get front row seats to what people want to read and want to know — in real time — and use search data to make bold decisions, about which topics to include and which topics to exclude.

(3) I have streamlined my content production to identify content ideas without manually having to sift through individual opinions to save days and even weeks of time.

It is wonderful to help the people to increase their knowledge in a straightforward way by just answering their questions.

I think the approach of writing of this book is unique as it collates, and tracks the important questions being asked by the readers on search engines.

Acknowledgments

Writing a book is harder than I thought and more rewarding than I could have ever imagined. None of this would have been possible without the work completed by prestigious researchers, and I would like to acknowledge their efforts to increase the knowledge of the public about this emerging technology.

Dedication

To the enlightened, the ones who see things differently, and want the world to be better -- they are not fond of the status quo or the existing state. You can disagree with them too much, and you can argue with them even more, but you cannot ignore them, and you cannot underestimate them, because they always change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones or amateur, others see genius and innovators, because the ones who are enlightened enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do, and lead the people to the enlightenment.

Epigraph

A hovertrain is a kind of high-speed train that substitutes traditional steel wheels with hovercraft lift pads. Additionally, the standard railway bed is replaced with a paved road-like surface that is known as the track or guideway. The purpose of the idea is to reduce the complexity of the infrastructure required to install new lines while simultaneously eliminating rolling resistance and enabling very high performance. The word hovertrain is more of a general phrase, and the specific vehicles are often called to by the project titles under which they were created. In the United Kingdom, these vehicles are referred to as tracked hovercraft, whereas in the United States, they are known as tracked air-cushion vehicles. In France, Jean Bertin (1917�1975) was the first person to design a hovertrain. In France, these trains were marketed as the A�rotrain until the French government decided to terminate the project.

Table of Contents

Copyright

Bonus

Preface

Introduction

Acknowledgments

Dedication

Epigraph

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Hovertrain

Chapter 2: Linear motor

Chapter 3: High-speed rail

Chapter 4: Hovercraft

Chapter 5: Transrapid

Chapter 6: Streamliner

Chapter 7: Maglev

Chapter 8: Hovercar

Chapter 9: Surface effect ship

Chapter 10: Aérotrain

Chapter 11: Railway speed record

Chapter 12: Ground effect train

Chapter 13: Development of the TGV

Chapter 14: URBA mass transport system

Chapter 15: Transpo '72

Chapter 16: Turbojet train

Chapter 17: ROMAG

Chapter 18: Tracked Hovercraft

Chapter 19: Krauss-Maffei Transurban

Chapter 20: Magnetic river

Chapter 21: Otis Hovair

Epilogue

About the Author

Coming Soon

Appendices: Emerging Technologies in Each Industry

Chapter 1: Hovertrain

A hovertrain is a form of high-speed train that utilizes hovercraft lift pads in lieu of the traditional steel wheels seen on other trains, and the traditional railway bed, which is similar to a paved road in appearance, referred to either the path or the guideway.

The idea is to get rid of rolling resistance completely, which would enable extremely high performance, while at the same time reducing the complexity of the infrastructure required to install additional lines.

The phrase hovertrain refers to any flying train, Moreover, the names of the projects in which the vehicles were created are the ones that are most often used when referring to them.

They are known as tracked hovercraft in the United Kingdom, They are known as tracked air-cushion vehicles in the United States.

Jean Bertin (1917-1975) of France is credited with the invention of the first hovertrain, where they were marketed as the Aérotrain before being abandoned by the French government.

In an age when conventional rail looked to be limited to speeds of roughly 230 kilometers per hour or less, the development of high-speed intercity train service using hovertrains was seen as a reasonably low-risk and low-cost approach to build high-speed intercity train service. At the tail end of the 1960s, considerable development activities were already under way in the United States of America, the United Kingdom, and France. During this time, British Rail was conducting a comprehensive analysis of the issues that were occurring at high speeds on traditional tracks. This research was carried out as the new rails were being designed. This resulted in many innovative designs for high-speed trains being developed in the 1970s, the first of which was their very own APT. In theory, hovertrains had lower infrastructure costs than the APT and other trains of a comparable design, such as the TGV; but, in fact, they required completely new rail lines, which nullified this advantage. Conventional wheeled trains may travel at a modest speed on existing rail lines, which would drastically cut down on the amount of money spent on capital improvements in metropolitan areas. The mid-1970s saw the beginning of the decline in interest in hovertrains, which led to the cessation of substantial development.

There was a lot of interest in the concept of personal rapid transit networks in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which led to the development of hovertrains that could operate on such systems. In this position, its ability to float over tiny defects and debris on the rails was a practical benefit. However, it competed with the maglev idea, which had the same advantages, thus it faced some stiff competition. Only the Otis Hovair technology was ever put into commercial use by hovertrain manufacturers. As a result of an antitrust judgement, General Motors was compelled to sell up the design for the automated guideway transit system that it had first created internally. Otis Elevator subsequently replaced the linear motor with a cable pull and offered the resultant design for people mover installations all over the globe. Ultimately, the design made its way to Otis Elevator, which eventually became part of Otis Elevator.

It was quickly realized that the smoothness of the surface that a hovercraft moved on had a direct bearing on the amount of energy that was required to keep the hovercraft aloft. This did not come as a surprise; the air that is entrapped beneath the hovercraft's skirt will remain there with the exception of the area where it leaks out around the bottom of the skirt where it contacts the ground. If the interface between the hovercraft and the ground is smooth, the amount of air that leaks out will be minimal. What came as a surprise was the fact that the amount of energy that may be lost via this process could be less than that lost by cars with steel wheels, at least while traveling at high speeds.

When traveling at high speeds, trains are subject to a sort of instability known as hunting oscillation. This causes the flanges that are located on the sides of the wheels to collide with the sides of the rails, giving the impression that the train is going around a sharp curve. At speeds of more than 230 kilometers per hour (140 miles per hour), the frequency of these collisions grew to the point that they formed a major type of drag. This resulted in a significant increase in rolling resistance and had the potential to cause a derailment. Because of this, it was possible for a hovercraft to have a higher fuel efficiency than a wheeled vehicle of the same weight while traveling at speeds beyond a certain threshold.

Better yet, All of the advantages associated with hovercrafts would still be there in such a vehicle as well.

The riding quality would not be affected by the surface's occasional minor faults in any way, in order to make the suspension system simpler and thereby minimize its complexity.

Additionally, due to the fact that the weight is distributed evenly across the lifting pads' surfaces, often the whole of the underneath of the car, the pressure on the running surface is greatly reduced – about ¹⁄10,000 the pressure of a train wheel, about ¹⁄20 of the pressure of a tire on a road.

Hovertrains could be supported on surfaces comparable to existing light-duty roadways rather than the significantly more complex and pricey railbeds that are required for conventional trains. These two properties meant that the running surface could be considerably simpler than the surface that was required to support the same vehicle on wheels. This might result in a significant reduction in the infrastructure capital expenditures associated with the construction of new lines and provide a pathway toward the widespread adoption of high-speed trains.

One of the earliest concepts for a hovertrain predates hovercraft by several decades. In the early 1930s, Andrew Kucher, an engineer working for Ford, came up with the idea of using compressed air to provide lift as a form of lubrication. This hovertrain concept was one of the earliest ideas for a hovertrain. This resulted in the conception of the Levapad, which consisted of pressurised air being expelled from tiny metal disks formed very similarly to a poppet valve. In order to function properly, the Levapad needed to be used on exceedingly flat surfaces, such as metal plates or, as was first envisioned, the very smooth concrete of a manufacturing floor. In the end, Kucher was promoted to the position of Vice President in charge of the Ford Scientific Laboratory. He maintained his focus on the Levapad idea throughout his tenure. However, none of them could come close to matching the efficiency of a wheel that was powered by an electric motor.

Prior to Eric Laithwaite's efforts, linear induction motors (LIMs) were only found in toy systems. Around the same time, Eric Laithwaite was working on the construction of the first practical linear induction motors (LIMs). A LIM may be constructed in a number of different ways; however, in its most basic configuration, it is made up of a part of the vehicle that is active, which is analogous to the windings on a conventional motor, and a metal plate that is placed on the tracks and functions as the stator. When the windings are given an electrical current, the magnetic field that they generate triggers the induction of the opposing field in the plate. As a result of hysteresis, there is a momentary lag between the field and the induced field. Following a series of convincing demonstrations, he was successful in persuading British Rail (BR) to finance some experimental work involving the use of a LIM to power a train that ran on tracks and made use of tiny lift pads that were comparable to the Levipad system for suspension.

A significant problem with the use of energy emerged throughout the process of the development of the different hovertrain systems. Lift is created in hovercraft not by the momentum of air flowing over an airfoil as is the case with traditional aircraft but rather by the application of pressure. The necessary air pressure is determined by the weight of the vehicle in addition to the dimensions of the lift pad; this is effectively a measurement of the total density of the vehicle. A vehicle that is not moving can only lose this air due to leakage around the pads, which can be very low depending on the relative pressure between the pad and the outside atmosphere. This leakage can be further reduced by the introduction of a skirt to close the gap between the pad and running surface as much as is possible.

Nevertheless, as the car starts moving, another another loss process kicks into gear. This is because of the friction that occurs at the surface level between the lift air and the ground below it. A portion of the lift air sticks to the running surface and is drawn out from beneath the pad as it travels as a result of this. The quantity of air that is lost as a result of this process is contingent on the velocity of the vehicle, the surface roughness, and the total surface area of the lift pads. To compensate for these pressure drops, the pressured air supplied by the vehicle's air pumps must be increased. Because the vehicle's weight and lift pad area are not variable, the amount of air that the pumps need to take in to function properly grows proportionally with the vehicle's speed for any given design.

The issue is not with the car itself but rather with the fact that the air is at rest in comparison to the rest of the globe. Before it can be put to use by the vehicle's air pumps, the speed at which it is traveling must first be increased. Similar effects are caused by practically all high-speed vehicles; for this reason, high-speed aircraft, such as fighter planes, have air inlets that are enormous and complicated in order to bring the air down to a speed that their jet engines can consume. When it comes to the design of a hovertrain, the air losses at the pads rise with speed, which means that a growing quantity of air has to be consumed and accelerated to compensate for the loss. When compared to the moving vehicle, the rising amount of air is moving at a speed that is gradually decreasing. As a consequence, there is a non-linear rise in the amount of power that is lost into the lift air. Similar values were attained by the French I80 HV (80 seats) at a speed of 431 kilometers per hour (268 miles per hour).

During the active time of hovertrains, there was consideration given to the possibility of employing magnets to cause a train to levitate. At first, it was believed that this would not be possible in the real world; if the system used electromagnets, the control systems that would ensure even lift across the vehicle would be prohibitively expensive; and at the time, there were no suitably powerful permanent magnets that would be able to lift a train.

Because of advancements in electronics and the electrical control systems that went along with them, it became easier and easier to construct a active track by employing electromagnets. By the late 1960s, there had been a resurgence in interest in the maglev idea, and several research projects had begun in both Germany and Japan. During the same time period, Laithwaite devised a novel kind of LIM that could be constructed over a passive track, similar to how traditional LIMs are, and that supplied both lift and forward force. In either scenario, the only magnets that would need to be activated would be those in the local area around the train, which looked to have far lower overall energy requirements than the hovertrain.

In broad strokes, the maglev essentially did away with the hover pads and replaced them with electromagnets. The weight of the vehicle was cut down by around 15 percent by removing the motors and fans as well as replacing the pads with magnets. Because of this modification, the hovercraft's formerly very modest payload percentage was significantly raised, thereby doubling its capacity in theory.

In more recent times, a Japanese initiative known as