Recently, Twitter user Nick Arvin shared photos of three unusual trains that have been rusting in dead ends in the outskirts of Colorado for a decade. They identified them as Rohr Industries' Aerotrain, Grumman's tracked levitating prototype and Garrett's AiResearch linear induction locomotive. Why did these revolutionary trains never conquer the railways?
Until the middle of the last century, the United States was a country of trains that helped Americans travel comfortably over great distances. Then they were driven out by cars and a network of "interstates" - long motorways. A little later, with the advent of magnetic levitation technology (maglev), the railroad workers wanted to take revenge, promising the country to be transported at an unprecedented speed. All three old machines from Arvin's tweet embody different approaches to putting Maglev technology into practice.
The successes of the engineers were very impressive - for example, the Grumman TLRV train, already in 1972 with a payload of 7 tons, could accelerate to 500 km / h. It reached a cruising speed of 434 km / h in just 3 minutes, and consumed less fuel than a conventional locomotive, due to the lack of friction in the maglev suspension. Alas, these high-speed monsters quickly showed an Achilles heel - in order to safely take turns, trains had to slow down to 140 km / h.
Simple calculations showed that when moving along existing tracks, maglev trains will constantly slow down and all the gain from speed will disappear. For such transport, other, long and direct routes are needed, which would have to be built from scratch, as it was later implemented in Japan and China. And in the 70s in the United States, no one wanted to spend money on rebuilding railways, moreover, today all projects like Hyperloop are very problematic to integrate into the existing infrastructure due to financial obstacles.
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