Hovertrains and visions of the future

Sutton Grapevine

Stories about Sutton-in-the-Isle, Cambridgeshire, UK

Hovertrains and visions of the future

April 28, 2009 at 1:36 pm · Filed under Do You Remember?, Stories and tagged: Future, train, transport

Tuesday 21st was a gorgeous sunny day for a visit to Sutton to speak to members of the Triangle Club, meeting some of the Tea Dancers and others at the Glebe. I am always inspired at the depth of the history and knowledge people have about Sutton and its history. I cycled there and back today and have a plan to do some Kayaking around the area this summer so that has set me to thinking a lot about the ways people have travelled and might travel in the future to the village.
One of the great images of the future we had in the past was of monorails and raised trains. I’d love to hear from people who remember the Hovertrain Project, according to wikkipedia:

“A test track for a tracked hovercraft system was built at Earith near Cambridge, England. It ran SW from Sutton Gault, sandwiched between the Old Bedford River and the smaller Counter Drain to the West. Careful examination of the site will still reveal traces of the concrete piers used to support the structure.”

It was apparently abandoned due to finances, I wonder what what the landscape would have looked like if it had been finished, would more people have moved here? Would it be a curse or a blessing? So next time I’m near Peterborough I am going to go see the RTV31 itself at Railworld. I was wondering why this mass transit system was planed for that route – does anyone know more?

Please post if you know anything about this lost part of our imagined transport future.

The RTV31

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5 Comments»

Judy Ballanger wrote @ May 7, 2009 at 6:32 pm

Yes, the hovertrain was just a test, that’s all. It was such a clever idea but the technology was a British invention that just died a death due to lack of funds. It was not intended that people would move and commute using it. At that time the fens were very agricultural and people tended to work near home.

Norman Sandland wrote @ April 5, 2010 at 10:31 am

I worked on the Hover train Project from 1969 to its closure in 1972. The 70 ft. vehicle was a test vehicle running on air cushions and propelled be a single sided linear Induction motor, the brainchild of professor Eric Laithwait of Imperial College. I was responsible for the design and performance of the computer system used to collect and process the telemetry data from the vehicle during it’s test runs and from other test rigs at the project headquarters in Cambridge..

The project was cancelled by the nice Mr. Hazeltine, then minister of Technology (in which he had zero experience) despite an approach from those horrible Frenchmen who were working on a similar vehicle. They wanted to set up a European joint project but to quote Hazeltine at the time “You cannot trust the French can you!”.

We reached a speed in the last run of the vehicle of 107 miles per hour on the short track of 1.5 miles from a standing start and a dramatic arrestor hook stop. The team on the motor moved to Canada and the dynamics team moved to Germany. U.K lost the technology (yet again). It was a great experience to work on the project. The civil engineering contractors would appear to have taken short cuts in preparing the piles (they were not installed to the design length) for the high level end of the track which promptly fell over in its first stages of construction, hence we only had the 1.5 mile length of track to work with.

Happy to discuss with any interested parties.

Regards Norman Sandland

Norman Sandland wrote @ April 5, 2010 at 10:34 am

I am happy to discuss my memories of the project with any interested partis

Norman Sandland

mike keane wrote @ August 19, 2010 at 12:45 am

I was a boy of 10 in 1972 living in Earith. I remember all the excitement when the body of the train was brought through the village on the back of a lorry, and the problem it had with corners and telephone poles due to its size.

One of my friends father worked on the project and we went down to see the “first” run. – there was no one there, we waited by the wire fence for hours and hours – nothing, finally disappointed and bored we started walking back alone the dyke, suddenly we heard a strange noise and turning round , the yellow train glided past us, we whooped and shouted as we ran along side..it was not going very fast. As a child the whole thing was just “magic”

I pretty sure it was yellow, or maybe white – without any markings -maybe someone can confirm as childhood memories are often wrong

CHRIS ROCKETT wrote @ February 15, 2011 at 9:13 pm

My late fathet worked at tracked hovercraft from the start until the end as a maintenance worker. I went to the factory many times and saw the train and track . I remenber the tv cameras being their to film when any attempt was made to run the train. My father collected several photos of the train and buildings and also manuels with train specifactions etc. I do feel that these documents should be on show but i am not sure where they should go ? My father was kept on when tracked hovercraft closed by the new company called ICOS who where involved in excurvation work around the world, so he had many good years at that site.