Early Experiment with Brennan Monorail
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yOUR issue dated January 31 contained a paragraph under "One Hears —" in which was asked what had become of the early gyroscopic-monorail experiment at Gillingham, Kent I cannot give an exact answer to that question, but I can tell what happened to the vehicle itself during its .first public demonstration. This was about 1910.
The car crashed, and it must have been the first selfpropelled vehicle to do so while stationary. It consisted of a large open platform with a cab at the forward end housing the driver, engine and gyroscopic mechanism. This was supported by a pair of wheels in tandem at each end. These were double-flanged and ran on a 'single bull headed steel rail, secured to short sleepers. The track included a straight and a circle 120 ft. in diameter.
In company with some 30 other men and women I boarded the vehicle for a trial run. It made several tours of the circuit, leaning over in an inward direction on the curves, as with a bicycle. After coming to a stop one of the party asked Louis Brennan, the inventor and designer, whether it would be safe,for all the party to crowd to one side. Brennan nodded assent. This action being taken, with the party close-packed, that side promptly rose gradually as the gyroscopes resisted the tendency for the vehicle to overturn. It was still gently rising when someone cried: "All move over to the other side."
The side we were now on rose at a rate which quickly increased and the passengers were thrown off in an untidy heap. It seemed that the transference from one side of the platform to the other before complete equilibrium had been restored resulted in an excess upward thrust.
Poor Brennan was most upset, the more so because Sir Winston Churchill .(then First Lord of the Admiralty), was amongst the onlookers.
I believe that some weeks later the car was installed at the White City, Shepherd's Bush, London, to give joy rides.
But for this unfortunate incident at Gillingham, the approach to many modern transport problems, including the much-discussed meinorailway to London Airport, might be on quite different " lines."
Oxted, Surrey. F. J. Fnsuam.