The development of humanity changed forever with the appearance of trains. The movement of massive loads, the sending of mail and passenger transport, ceased to be titanic tasks, to become services within reach of almost everyone. However, some minds believed that the traditional train could be optimized, and one of them belonged to the Irish-Australian inventor Louis Brennan, who created a gyroscopic monorail at the beginning of the 20th century. This monorail promised high speeds and better economy in laying tracks without sacrificing stability, but all that remains are photos of its full-scale prototype…
A Monorail with Gyroscopic Stability
The Brennan monorail, or Gyro-Monorail, measured twelve meters in length, had a mass of 22 tons, and a payload capacity of 10 tons. Inspired by a wind-up toy he had bought for his son, the inventor decided to implement in his design a gyroscopic stabilization system with two devices dubbed "gyrostats". Each measured one meter in diameter and weighed 750 kilograms. Installed on horizontal axes, the gyrostats spun at 3,000 revolutions per minute, inside vacuum casings to reduce losses associated with air friction.
Brennan's original idea suggested a broad military application. By installing a single track instead of two, the monorail would enter service much faster and at a fraction of the cost, not to mention that its top speed was double that of a traditional route (the monorail itself reached 25 kilometers per hour).
Success and Support
Brennan patented his design in 1903, demonstrated it before the Royal Society in 1907, the demo for journalists was in 1909, and afterwards he participated in the Japan-British Exhibition of 1910, with absolute success. The press of the time received it with open arms, marveling at the monorail's "balancing act", but one of its main allies was none other than Winston Churchill, who saw it as "a revolution of the world's railway systems".
Why Did It Fail?
Successful tests, press support, and financial support from the government. What happened to Brennan's gyroscopic monorail? In essence, it never managed to dispel doubts about its safety. From a certain point of view, they were reasonable: if one of the gyrostats failed, the vehicle would fall. Brennan assured over and over that it would never happen, but that fear, combined with the lobby of the conventional railway industry, and the obligation to stabilize all the cars of a train, caused the project to come to nothing.
Source: Vintage Everyday
