This experimental single rail gyro train was built in the early 20 th century. It was stabilized by using a gyroscope. You can read all about it here:
http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Gyro_Monorail
You can build a simple single wheel gyro car that runs on a single rail made of bandsaw blades. Read all about this DIY project here:
…Weird and wild…!
Very interesting idea.
The picture show an older gyro-car
And when the gyro accidentally stops spinning - - - ?
A wondering Art
Greek food in the dining car?
This definitely has a resemblance to the sort of inventions and proposals that turned up regularly in the pages of “Popular Science” and “Popular Mechanics”.
Sort of a Segway on rails!
The Gryo train looks like an early experiment with monorail.
Some possible reasons why it never made it past the theoretical stage :
How big does the gyroscope have to be?
You would need one in every car.
You would have to keep them spinning 24 hours per day or the train would tip over.
Back about August of last year we had a short Thread here about the Monorail/Hovercraft the was at Pueblo, Colo for testing;
This is a link to that Thread: http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/p/157281/1755441.aspx#1755441
here also: http://dewi.ca/trains/bennie/index.html
These things seem to crop up from time to time; Remember George Bennie’s 'RailPlane from the 930’s?
Here’s a link to a Video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7133812192638114164#
and here as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4Qamg3C188
You might find this of interest as well, Mr. Lewis Brennan’s Monorail with pictures and drawings : http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/odgyro.Html
another link as well: http://www.monorails.org/tmspages/History.html
Hope these links will prove interesting!
P.S, Mr. George Bennie was a Scotchman and Mr. Lewis Brennan was an Irishman. Seems like the UK has really produced quite a range of ingenous rail contraptions![bow]