The Emmett index. [volume] (Emmett, Idaho) 1893-1925, 1913-05-01
MAIL BY AERIAL ROAD
An Engineers Invention Goes
500 Miles an Hour.

Emile Bachelet, an electrical en-,
gineer has invented an aerial railway
which he asserts, will carry 500.
pound tube of mail to Boston through
the air, without contact with anything
in less than sixty minutes. 1t takes
the fastest train five hours to cover
the same distance. This became known
few weeks ago when Postmaster
General Hitchcock sent special engi-
neers from Washington to examine
the device which, if successful, will re-
volutionize the transportation of mail
to all parts of the country. 1t was
learned also that syndicates of Wall
Street promoters were considering a
plan to finance the building of the
first airway to Boston.
The invention at first sight seems
so contrary to all reason that it APP
pears incredible. 1t in no way re-
sembles a flying machine or airship
device. 1t is based on an apparent
naturalization of the force of gravity
and the overcoming of all friction
save that with the air.
Bachelet explained that his plan
was to erect a steel track, hardly
more than series of large wires, on
poles to Boston; to equip this track
with a series of tubes about thirty
feet long, and to run them across
country at 5-minute intervals, with
mail and express matter. He said
that later special torpedo cars would
be built to carry passengers, though
only a few could be accommodated in
each car. In the case of passenger
traffic, he explained, the speed would
necessarily be reduced to something
lik on hundrd to two hundred miles an
hour.
The model apparatus which Mr..
Bachelet has built at his home, con-
sists of metal track Below this
track are a series of coils On the
track rested cylindrical tube of metal
weighing forty pounds. The points
of contact of this tube with the track
were aluminium plates.
Bachelet had found that Eddy and
Foucault currents, forces generally
considered a nuisance among electri-
cal phenomena, did not magnetic
aluminium. Therefore they exerted a
force against its surface. By turning
the currents through the coils and
track against the aluminium plates on
the bottom of the cylinder, the cylin-
der was lifted into the air, and held
firmly there. At 20-foot intervals on
the model track were solenoids, or
loops supplied with electrical currents,
which, when excited, draw the cylin-
der forward. AS the cylinder passed
a solenoid, that particular solenoid
was de-energized automatically, and
the cylinder, rushing ahead with it's
own momentum, shot into the tractive
zone of the next, to be pulled onward
and fired out beyond the next, and
next.
A 500-pound projectile flying five
miles an hour across country |
% Boston, with no contact with any
hing save the atmosphere, held forth |
,isions of death and destruction if |
he thing should go astray. The in
'entor explained that this would be
on account of the terrible
"Trip of the forward movement, the
lold that the levitating currents main
aimed on the cylinder, and that in
addition narrow flanges would be |
tilted on the bottom of the cylinder,
which in emergency would drop "a
,ainst the track, keeping the cylinder
n constant control.
He said that the car would be auto
stopped at its destination
md declared that the cost of operat-
ng the road would be small.