The 1960s and 70s were an era of grand projects from landing on the moon to Concorde and passenger hovercraft. It was a golden age of engineering when anything seemed possible, even if projects were over budget, technically ambitious and late to deliver.
Long-time readers of GNC will remember I covered France’s Aérotrain, a high-speed hovertrain using aero engines to propel the train on a test track between Ruan and Saran near Orleans. In March 1974 it set a world record with an average speed of 418 km/h (259 mph) and a top speed of 430 km/h (267 mph).
Eventually the Aérotrain was cancelled in favour of the TGV (Train à Grande Vitesse) which like the Aérotrain had dedicated track for high speed sections but was able to run on conventional rail lines coming into the cities. The TGV now routinely runs at 320 km/h (199 mph) covering 460 km from Paris to Lyon in about 2 hours. TGV certainly lives up to its name.
France wasn’t alone in its high-speed ambitions. The UK was at it too with the imaginatively named Research Test Vehicle (RTV) 31 by Tracked Hovercraft and a test track was built near Earith in Cambridgeshire, England. Four miles of a planned 20 mile test track were built and in February 1973, the RTV 31 achieved a speed of 104 mph on only 1 mile of track. A week later the funding was pulled by the British government.
Like the French Aérotrain, it too was cancelled in favour of conventional rail, in this case the APT (Advanced Passenger Train) though that never really delivered on its promise. Instead, the highly successful HST (High Speed Train) became the workhorse of British Rail running at 125 mph on existing rail lines. Unlike the Aérotrain, almost nothing remains of the test track and the RTV 31 itself is on display at Railworld Wildlife Haven.
All is not lost though, and remarkable film footage is being restored by Fenland on Film to produce a definitive documentary about the RTV 31 hovertrain with interviews from the original team. You can support their efforts to make the documentary via GoFundMe. There’s promo trailer for the film below.