Why the Railplane Totally Failed

[@DeanStephen]

That car was a work of art. It should have been preserved in a museum.

[@jaykay845]

Whatever you say Professor Jones.

[@joegordon5117]

I first heard of the Bennie Railplane way back when I was a kid, because his test track for it was only a few miles from our family home. Probably one of the first times as a youngster that I realised that history didn't just happen very long ago in faraway places, but right on your doorstep too.

[@dwdei8815]

I love it! Of course we have no idea of the accidents, the bankruptcies, the corner-cutting and the sloppy maintenance which occurred in the parallel universe where Bennie's eye-catching steampunk railplanes were built. But this has the feel of an "It could easily have been". Yes the narrative crumbles into one of debt and obsession and loneliness and it is a tragedy that there are so few artefacts left of this extraordinary hope. It is, overall, a thing of delight and pride to be part of a species where some of us not only envision such dreams but pursue them even into tragedy. Thank you for knowing about this and sharing it.

[@crabtonia]

Thank you, Ryan...once again, a Real Treat...my Father took me in 1954, aged 10, to see the Prototype in the Field near Milngavie...it was Falling Apart by then...apparently my Uncle had worked on the Designs for Mr Bennie...dgp/uk

[@ITSHISTORY]

Thank you for sharing this story! Looks like you had a first hand experience with that!

[@JayPerry-p2n]

The problem as I see it is any track failures are catastrophic and a death sentence.

[@FluxDeimos]

So no different than regular rail lol

[@KathyKinnaird]

So much of humanity is wasted on greed.

[@jorgecruzseda7551]

The Root of all evil is the love of $

[@RetroElijah1982]

I love these train videos, the buildings ones as well. Another instant classic, great job Ryan

[@ITSHISTORY]

Thank you very much!

[@stephenwebber4018]

Thank you for featuring this. I grew up in Milngavie, so I know the area well.

[@history_leisure]

"passenger trains were bogged down by freight", something that has yet to be solved

[@ksavage681]

And the rail companies still don't want to really share the track with them.

[@DeanStephen]

Amtrak should try this. Signed, Professor Jones

[@josephturner7569]

It has been in Europe.

[@moritzheintze7615]

A nice Video, well explained. However I think the railplane failed because of a fatal design flaw: The small cars of the prototype may have been easy to accelerate and move, however with a 3-digit passenger capacity, the prop drive would have caused an awful storm in the station during acceleration. All successful transport systems have been scaled to high passenger capacity.

[@Johnketes54]

Concorde was successful

[@slackerman9758]

Also, the power delivery is lossy. Why connect your transaxle to a fan and push air? Why not just directly deliver effort to the rail?

[@MarceloBenoit-trenes]

@@Johnketes54 no, it wasnt.

[@Johnketes54]

@@MarceloBenoit-trenes Explain yourself? It ran for years and let down by the French, More import my 12 year old friend, Explain to me in more than one word why you consider it as a failure?

[@Johnketes54]

@@slackerman9758 Friction? 48 pounds to push it

[@Larry]

Hertfordshire is a county, not a town.

[@brj_han]

Maintenance, after a few years, would have been a nightmare after the steel gridwork started to rust out. At least traditional trains are supported by the ground, and derailments are generally easy to deal with. The railplane would fall out of the sky like.... a plane....

[@dannydaw59]

On top of that if the engine fails that passengers would be stuck up there. Too high up for ladders.

[@FlatDerrick]

@@dannydaw59 Not an issue, as the development of cable cars shows us. You get people out using a trapdoor and rope system, or if the system is running above an area where this is not possible, use a helicopter.

[@edholmwood2263]

Another great story. Thanks.

[@jimmeltonbradley1497]

For information: Hertfordshire is a county not a town. Hertford is a town in Hertfordshire.

[@kbtred51]

The first horse-powered elevated monorail of 1825 was in the TOWN of Cheshunt (in the COUNTY of Hertfordshire). Designed by Henry Robinson Palmer who also invented corrugated metal roofing and founded the Institute of Civil Engineering.

[@shafferjoe1962]

Thank you so much for this video. Very cool idea and I would have love to have seen this go.

[@ITSHISTORY]

You are so welcome!

[@cruzcontrol1504]

If you combine this concept with Logie-Baird's mechanical scanning television system you realize the Brits are great at CONTRAPTIONS !!!... Look at how much structure must be built for this thing to travel the distance of one car length.

[@pault5557]

The Wuppertal train is the one that inspired Walt Disney to create the monorail at Disneyland, but the swaying made his wife, Lilian, sick, so that’s why he made his train ride on top of the rail!

[@KabukeeJo]

These days, if you invent anything that gets in the way of their profits, they will find you no longer consuming oxygen.

[@King_T]

There's a lot of upside to this idea. Could be put over existing rail rights-of-way or have covered walking/cycling/driving underneath. Low snow- clearing costs too. Damn shame. Also, it's "Fahrenheit four five one" and not "Fahrenheit four fifty one." I don't know why actually.

[@jameswilson5165]

Dead giveaway. He's a Bot.🤣

[@ksavage681]

Should put one right down the middle of most interstates. make the stations at the overpasses.

[@kbtred51]

@@ksavage681 Brightline Vegas

[@IncredibleCactusRoll]

Something truly ahead of its time.

[@funken079]

Very cool story, thanks for telling it.

[@WangoBango]

Hertfordshire is a county not a town. A county consists of many towns. Same way Yorkshire is not a town but it consists of the town of York. Same with Hertfordshire as its main town is Hertford.

[@EllieMaes-Grandad]

Yorkshire consists of more than the town of York . . .

[@WangoBango]

@@EllieMaes-Grandad you kno what I mean. Don’t be pedantic.

[@EllieMaes-Grandad]

@@WangoBango No, I don't 'know'. I see so many errors on YT. Do it right, or don't do it.

[@WangoBango]

@@EllieMaes-Grandad shh grandad

[@nkronert]

What a sad end to this man and his ideas.

[@ronniel5941]

I think the railcar was in fact still in position until shortly before its demolition in 1956 - I actually saw it moving, just once, around 1952. Some of these soldiers shown seem anything but British ! But well done with such a thorough explanation of what is quite a sad story.

[@dannycrooks8462]

I've never heard of this before

[@dabedwards]

Thank you for this excellent documentary. I´m afraid it was just another case of a creative visionary being defeated by politicians and rivals.

[@jangles1839]

It's truly unfortunate the obstacles that prevented this from going forward. Shows just how much power and influence that the major existing railways had during that time. Not to mention that The Great Depression played a big part that he seemingly overcame eventually. I honestly believe it's something that would & could still be used today if it had only been able to take off. Thanks Ryan for bringing this to us!

[@andrewholdaway813]

It was a nonsensical dead end

[@koiyujo1543]

his goal to my knowledge was to have high speed and transporting people knowing if he was still alive to see bullet and high speed trains he would be happy for that

[@jasonz7788]

Great video! Thanks

[@davidfellows8714]

The Railplane and track were not demolished during WW2; they survived until 1956. The maximum speed it reached was 55mph, limited by the length of the track. For most of its existence it had a two-bladed propellor ot one end and a four-bladed one at the other. The motors were rated at 100hp and ran on 500v. 120 mph would have been achieved on a longer track. The track construction was similar to (but lighter than) the Wuppertal Schwebebahn, which has been in operation for over a century. Bennie was not a trained engineer and the design work was done by Hugh Fraser. There is an extensive archive on the project at the University of Glasgow library. In 1930 the railways were congested with slow-moving local services and freight. Road transport was under-developed compared to rail. This was a serious proposal for high speed passenger travel in its time, confounded by vested interests and economic depression.

[@rolux4853]

4:15 The river the Schwebebahn hangs over is called the Wupper river. Wuppertal is the name of the whole city. Wupper being the name of the river and Tal meaning valley in german. So the city is called valley of the Wupper or Wupper Valley.

[@xmeda]

Still more viable than hyperloop :D

[@andrewholdaway813]

If you set the bar low enough any idea can look good 🤣

[@ghayes220]

A very interesting and fascinating story.

[@lawrencecalfee3769]

I wish we had this or something similar now. Only a handful of cities in the US have mass transit other that buses… As the powers that be made it so😑😔😡

[@MarceloBenoit-trenes]

To do what? This was a failure, too expensive, low transport capacity, high maintenance...

[@ponyote]

This is great historical insight. Thank you. Now can we get this running from Seattle to Philly? I'd pay for a pass.

[@katrinabryce]

Looks like a gadgetbahn to me, and likely would have never worked. The LNER Class A4 (Mallard) came out at around the same time, and could do 126mph on conventional track. As well as being very expensive to construct the track for this over any significant distance, I don't see how points [switches] would have worked on it, so you couldn't have any branches on the line.

[@Trump985]

Imagine building something like this today, but replace the props and electric motors with a couple of J79s. Provided you can deal with the aerodynamic heating you should have a supersonic monorail.

[@icerook1560]

Looks like too much infrastructure and way too many metals, sorry I disagree with this. 😢

[@chocolatnoir1108]

it will be so pricey to maintain the rail itself. thus conventional train on land rails will still be around. this is why conventional trains will be nostalgic no matter how far the technologies goes - land monorails, maglev etc.

[@josephturner7569]

I used to work that line as a guard in the 80's. The one on the ground.

[@corrauniverse269]

0:01 I think that's an E2 tank engine on the bottom, same type as Thomas

[@michaelweis4756]

So friggin interesting! 👍🏻

[@MyKharli]

Elon could have built it on 240km high piers to achieve cheep vacuum but i don't think even hyper propellers would work up there .

[@DetroitMicroSound]

Very noisy for urban use.

[@abbush2921]

Sshhhh .

[@DetroitMicroSound]

@@abbush2921 😄

[@glenlongstreet7]

Slow down, you move to fast; you've got to make the morning last.

[@vincenthprice2260]

Interesting technology back then

[@ballyhigh11]

At 11:53 you show a newspaper clip that says in a trial run the railplane "covered the 30 miles in exactly 15 minutes". Yet the test track was only 130m (and not c. 1800ft as you earlier claimed).

[@kbtred51]

Which would have been the proposed 120 mph yet it never exceeded 55 mph.

[@Paul_C]

That is solely due to not understanding aerodynamics/fluid dynamics.

[@aodhganmerrimac]

Surprised you didn't mention The Meigs Elevated Railway in Cambridge, Mass as well in the opening section. I would suspect this system couldn't be easily scaled up. Switching trains between right-of-ways would be complicated (one of the reasons monorails in general haven't replace traditional railways) & How effective would the props be in intermediate coaches? I would imagine the air currents disrupted by the lead prop would diminish the efficacy of the props in the middle.

[@Pentagon6519]

A lighter vehicle will be much more affected by side winds than a heavier one of the same size. Also the bridges etc would still have to be built strong enough to support the full weight of the train. Otherwise if there was an engine failure the structure would collapse when the lift being generated stopped.

[@ANDREWLEONARDSMITH]

Was this the precursor of the Hovertrain which itself was rendered obsolete by MAGLEV?

[@kbtred51]

All developments start as dreams where those driven to pursue them to prototypes develop outcomes. Everyone builds upon their predecessors combining experiences. Today we have Starship.

[@honeyhivefarms5739]

NICE job

[@kbtred51]

19:33 "UK also plans to build a new monorail over existing Railway service" - a 20-metre high elevated monorail run above the existing track between Woking and London Waterloo published 1 APR 2017 (fools) 'hs2 a High-Speed Rail Project in the UK also plans to build a new' cable hauled mover connecting HS2 to the Birmingham Airport terminal.

[@philrod1]

Cool idea, but i think the cost of the infrastructure would have crippled this idea. Look how much metal goes into the framework. Also, that was the closest to correct I've ever heard anyone pronounce "Milngavie" without them living nearby 😅

[@koiyujo1543]

that's true but his goal was to have high speed and transporting people knowing if he was still alive to see bullet and high speed trains he would be happy for that

[@jamesricker3997]

More expensive than air travel and not as safe.

[@kbtred51]

Not in the 1920s (or since really)

[@mktwatcher]

They just required fad too much extra raised metal rail suspension system.

[@MultiPetercool]

Remember Elon’s failed Hyperloop concept?

[@1FeistyKitty]

good quality educational

[@kekero540]

$4 million on railing 1 million on the car itself 😂

[@tweetingsparks]

Hey Mr. Socash

[@SafdarDurrani]

You should describe this for gated railplane project easily by using the advance technology of animatedly,, every body can see the flying train and guests why the project was failed next time remember my advice Thanx friend lala Pakistani

[@BobDeCaprio]

Yeah that's a real puzzler

[@1FeistyKitty]

the guy was a success ----- most people die with their music still in them

[@hastypete2]

5:15 What is going on on that photo???

[@htimsid]

Yes.

[@conradharcourt8263]

The guy sitting on the ground is cleaning the horse's hoof that the gentleman bending down on the right is holding. Meanwhile a colleague is standing behind the seated gentleman most likely pretending to be, but perhaps actually, cutting the hair of the seated man with mechanical shears powered by the crank being turned by the gent standing on the left of the picture. A gentleman in a cap is holding the horse's bridle while a fellow next to him idly rests on a broom At least that's what I reckon 😊

[@fubarmodelyard1392]

Lots of naysayers in this comment section. The types who would have told the Wright brothers you can't do that, told Henry Ford it's just a fad, or told NASA it's impossible to get to the moon. Their dictionaries start and end with the word can't

[@rctopfueler2841]

The moon is still untouched we ve never. Been there

[@MyKharli]

You mean like hyperloop , self driving cars , cancer cures , sustainable living within planetary resources , diamond coated scratch less glass , fusion , retirement at 40 , flying cars , etc hmm yeah i`m with the naysayers , nearly all humanities `achievements` rely entirely on robbing stored resources and that bank is running out fast .

[@ANONAAAAAAAAA]

This gadgetbahn is another level.

[@RealityCheck6969]

All you need is a few tons of steel for every meter instead of 2 stupid train tracks. But its a brilliant idea!

[@kbtred51]

considerable engineering for those 2 rails and earthworks. CA HSR costs were mostly land acquisition and Brightline is progressing because of existing right of ways

[@josephturner7569]

Congratulations on pronouncing Milngavie correctly.

[@markhaley100]

The HS2 isn’t happening mate not up North I believe Leeds and Manchester has been dropped as it’s too expensive I live in Leeds so hear about it on the news Great videos Keep up the amazing content and thank you

[@MartinFarrell1972]

Only found this out recently that the SNP had paid the tories to extend HS2 to Scotland. The money was never returned as the plan was dropped. At the time it was proposed I had family living in London so was keen on it happening. They're back up here now. Why does most of Europe have high speed trains and we're still lagging behind?

[@wirebrushofenlightenment1545]

I'm starting to think that HS2 was all along a con to build a high-speed rail link just for London and the suburbs.

[@kbtred51]

@@wirebrushofenlightenment1545 A half baked idea rushed through in lead up to Brexit. UK exit costs included share of all approved EU projects including the Trans-European high-speed rail network (TEN-R). Boris thinking was if Brits have to pay for HSR then it may as well be in the UK.

[@effenbeezeetravel4474]

I wanted a rail plane with actual wings which could be dirt cheap to construct because they only need to be crude and the track could only be like cables which would be real cheap as heck too!

[@jedrek1521]

Weird how viable technology gets adopted and wishful thinking keeps getting reinvented ever 20 or so years.

[@levete-on1uo]

Over engineered.

[@bgw33]

👍

[@SinaLaJuanaLewis]

Was this on an episode of the Simpsons?

[@thetbird69]

Not in your lifetime my Hindu friend

[@crabtonia]

Quite possibly!!!...dgp/uk

[@kbtred51]

@@thetbird69 Is there a chance the track could bend?

[@davidsummerfield2594]

All that metal work just to carry one or two cars! Not cost effective, plus the visual impact of this structure especially in the countryside would not tolerated! NIMBYism at its best! Note local trains in the UK can be up to 12cars long, plus High speed trains up to 18cars long, I have no idea how Mr Bennie expected to make this system pay?.

[@gimzani]

I wonder what Elon would do with that. 😂

[@ANONAAAAAAAAA]

The smallest amount of knowledges on Physics is more than enough to tell this design is complete nonsense.

[@philrod1]

As others have pointed out, it's still more viable than Hyperloop 😂

[@GeneralGayJay]

I wanna say lamb chops 🤔

[@onieyoh9478]

Imagine being so ignorant that you think the great depression was because of the gold standard. Imagine being so ignorant that you think over engineered propeller trains with tracks more expensive and difficult to build were the future of transportation and not just a gimmick. Imagine being that delusional.

[@SRW_]

I hear those things are awfully loud

[@kbtred51]

It glides as softly as a cloud ( Conan O'Brien )

[@andrewholdaway813]

The railplane failed because it wasn't a very good idea.

[@ericl2851]

I wish this guy wasn’t always slipping in his activism. The great depression was not caused by the connection of money to the gold standard.

[@goldgeologist5320]

A foolish concept. The cost to build and maintain the steel structure would have been unsustainable!

[@AllanAdamson]

they don't want private coordinated oversight.. they need disasters & economic restrictions.. to keep people in line

[@MarceloBenoit-trenes]

Nonsense.

[@DennisFreitas-bn7nh]

The lucky not for all persons.

[@damonroberts7372]

Bit late for an April Fool's Day video?

[@windharp]

There are lots of original films from the railplane in motion, so why do you think of an April Fools joke?

[@sandybruce9092]

@@windharpProbably because this person is too young to have any decent thoughts!

[@AllanAdamson]

the serpent eating its own tail.. thats our banking / government / military ... complex

[@RodneySanches]

Loo-ish-ummm

[@schneeflitchen]

Why? Because IT was Not Made in Germany!

[@crapisnice]

Total madness, a bird chopper and making noise all around the countryside Lightweight trains can move trough stone rails with little metal profile ( there are already pure granite trams) with wingsails or even vawt wind turbines (covered with nets) or spinakers or genaker downwind

[@curtisnewton895]

what's that socash crap ?

[@Justin_80]

You'd think a pilot would realize how loud propellers are.