Look at the picture, do you believe that such a railway was built before the Revolution!
This is how it was …
The idea that it is more profitable to navigate on one rail than on two was born to inventors in the 1820s. History stores information about the project "Road on pillars" by Ivan Elmanov. It is known that an engineer from the village of Myachkovo near Moscow tried in every possible way to find investors for his monorail project, but to no avail.
In 1907, August Scherl in Berlin and independently of him Louis Brennan in London showed the public models of single-rail trains. A couple of years later, the same Brennan in Geelingham (Great Britain) showed a full-size carriage for 50 passengers.
Contemporaries spoke with great optimism about single-rail roads, believing that soon they would completely replace the usual double-rail ones. Indeed, lifted above the ground on light and compact viaducts, they would have been much more convenient as a high-speed urban transport than the then common trams and horse trams. Long-distance single-rail roads, due to the lower material consumption of the tracks and the increased speed of trains, promised to be much more profitable than the usual double-track ones. The military departments, interested in the possibility of the rapid construction of access roads, also pinned great hopes on the invention.
A car model for a gyroscopic railway.
But there were also reasons for skepticism. The question of constant maintenance of the equilibrium of the rolling stock remained unresolved. On a two-track train, when stopping and parking, it was possible to simply turn off the engine; on a single-track train, it was required to constantly maintain the rotation of the flywheel. Of course, it was possible to do without a rotating gyroscope - for this purpose, the cars had special safety stops.
They could help out in the event of an engine breakdown and a gradual stop of the flywheel rotation. But using them was not very convenient. In addition, each new spin of the massive flywheel took time.
Promotional video:
Single-rail track, laid in 1921 from Detskoye Selo to Srednaya Slingshot near St. Petersburg.
Nevertheless, experiments and calculations have shown that the idea of building a single-rail road is quite sensible and promises benefits.
Therefore, attempts to build such a road have been made several times. In 1911, a 160 km single-rail road was under construction in Alaska. History is silent about the fate of this project. But the "Krasnaya Gazeta" of April 15, 1921 reports: "The Presidium of the Supreme Council of the National Economy discussed the issue of building a single-rail gyroscopic railway. It was decided to use the now inactive former tsarist branch Petrograd - Detskoe Selo - Aleksandrovka. The Putilov Plant is already producing the frame and body of a two-car train. A test train was planned in a year. It is designed for 150 versts per hour. Such a speed was not yet available for double-rail roads. " The author of the project of this train was Pyotr Petrovich Shilovsky.
From the docs. One of the proposed variants of the rolling stock for 400 seats.
A representative of an ancient noble family, Peter Petrovich received a law degree, studied law in Russia and Germany. Returning to his homeland, he worked as an investigator in Luga, near St. Petersburg, then became a journalist, then again took up the position of an investigator, now in Novorzhev. In his free time he played the violin and even seriously thought about a career as a musician.
Having shown himself to be an outstanding personality in administrative positions, Shilovsky received the post of vice-governor in Uralsk, then in Yekaterinoslav and Simbirsk. Finally, in 1910, Petr Petrovich became governor of Kostroma. But, being a statesman, Shilovsky did not forget about his hobby - flywheel transport.
In the spring of 1909, Shilovsky received a patent No. 27091 for "A device for maintaining the balance of carts or other bodies in an unstable position." Moreover, he patented his invention not only at home, but also in England, Germany, France and the USA. "In nature, normal, correct, natural forward movement," writes the inventor, "is movement along a line, not along a plane."
In April 1911, Pyotr Petrovich incognito presented a model of his single-rail track at an exhibition in St. Petersburg, timed to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the first Russian railway. But there is nothing secret that would not be revealed. Journalists got to the bottom of the truth. At the exhibition, Shilovsky announced that he was planning to build a real, large gyro train. But troubles began in the service, the Kostroma governor was transferred to remote Petrozavodsk, and soon he resigned, moved to St. Petersburg and took up technical creativity.
About the creator of the model Pyotr Petrovich Shilovsky "Petersburg Gazeta" wrote: “Strange as it may seem, but the inventor did not receive any special technical education. He is a lawyer and holds a very prominent administrative post in one of the provinces of Russia. " Indeed, Shilovsky headed the Kostroma province at that time.
He came from an old noble family, graduated from the St. Petersburg School of Jurisprudence, "a nursery for state people," as this privileged educational institution was then called. Petr Petrovich quickly moved up the career ladder, starting from the modest position of an investigator in Luga, then held the posts of vice-governor in Uralsk, Yekaterinoslav and Simbirsk. And in 1910 he reached the highest point of his career: he became the governor of the Kostroma province.
One Moscow reporter characterized PL. Shilovsky as follows: “Richly gifted, with great ambition, he dreamed of being promoted from childhood. In the environment where he was brought up, to advance meant to make a bureaucratic career. Natural abilities pushed his inquisitive mind in the direction of knowledge, and the views cultivated by the environment attracted him to a career, and from these two principles his whole life was formed."
Shilovsky was the author of a number of works on jurisprudence and many publicistic articles on legal issues. But the amazing thing, technology, mechanics interested him no less, and perhaps even more than legal sciences. And he chose for himself one of the most difficult, most difficult sections of mechanics, over which the largest scientists racked their brains.
"A device for maintaining the balance of carts or other unstable bodies." This was the name of the invention for which Shilovsky received a privilege, a Russian patent, filed in the spring of 1909. The device had a two-frame gyroscope with a pendulum. If the balance of the carriage was disturbed, the pendulum connected an electric motor, which affected the inner frame of the gyroscope. A force appeared, restoring balance.
In June 1909, a small gyroscopic model was already confidently moving along a wire stretched between trees at the inventor's dacha.
The war was already in full swing when Shilovsky proposed to supply ship guns with gyroscopic devices. In 1915, he turned to the Naval General Staff with a letter in which he argued that this would significantly increase the accuracy of shooting, since the gyroscopic gun would always be aimed at the target, "even if the ship was subject to the most serious rolling."
Then, during the First World War, he developed an outright heroic effort to implement his invention in the navy. And it is not his fault that, for purely bureaucratic reasons, this was never done.
Shilovsky gushed with bold ideas. Simultaneously with the project of the gyroscopic cannon, his gyroscopic stabilizer of the ship's pitch appeared. He created a gyroscopic heading indicator for ships and aircraft, the so-called "orthoscopic". In Petrograd, through the efforts of a tireless inventor, a pilot production of such devices was established. They were successfully tested at sea and in the air on the giant aircraft "Ilya Muromets". Alas, that was the end of it. The times of devastation and collapse have come.
Girokar Shilovsky with a mass of 2750 kg had a wheelbase with a length of 3969 mm. To maintain the balance, a 600-kg flywheel with a diameter of 1 m and a thickness of 12 cm was used. It was spun by an electric motor with a capacity of 1.25 liters. with., powered by the generator of the main gasoline engine with a capacity of 24 liters. from. manufactured by the same company Wolseley.
The gyro train was not the only project of the designer. Shilovsky has long been hatching the idea of building a two-wheeled car.
Despite the former governorship, Peter Shilovsky did not manage to find money to build a gyro-mobile in Russia, and he is building it in England at the Wesley firm. He moved to England, worked for the Sperry Gyroscope Company and tried in every possible way to convince investors of the promise of single-track transport. Soon, the English firm Wolseley Tool & Motorcar Company set about creating the Shilovsky miracle. In the summer of 1914, a two-wheeled car appeared on the streets of London, surprising and delighting the inhabitants of the metropolis. We will talk more about his work there later..
It is not known what the fate of Shilovsky's car would have been if not for the war. The First World War froze an innovative project for a long time. Nevertheless, Shilovsky's name appeared again.
Shilovsky returned to Russia, not yet knowing what lay ahead of him. And the revolution was waiting for him. But here's the strangeness: the count, the rich man, the ex-governor did not fall under the pressure of the new government. On the contrary, the authorities first of all noticed his inventive abilities. On September 8, 1919, he made a report at a meeting of the All-Russian Council of the National Economy with a report "On the construction of a gyroscopic railway line Kremlin - Kuntsevo." The Supreme Council of the National Economy issued a decree on the need to build an experimental gyroscopic railway 6 versts in length and instructs a member of the presidium Krasin to create a commission to prepare the decree and issue an advance payment for construction. Shilovsky was assigned a separate design bureau, provided the engineers with subordination - and he zealously got down to business. Shilovsky carriage project:
Drawing from a gyroscopic road project.
Unprecedented prospects opened before him. Shilovsky received an order from the Soviet government to create the world's first gyro train. We managed to organize our own design bureau and attract such brilliant specialists to the project.
In the conditions of a shortage of rails during the civil war, the new transport looked very attractive. In addition, it was an opportunity to simplify the construction of military field narrow gauge railways.
During the year, a group of engineers (R. N. Wolf, A. M. Godytsky-Tsvirko, V. N. Evreinov, R. A. Luther, A. S. Schwartz and others) under the leadership of Shilovsky created a project of a single-rail track and a gyroscopic train … The most famous mechanical scientists of Russia were involved in the theoretical substantiation of the monorail: I. V. Meshchersky, P. F. Papkovich, N. E. Zhukovsky.
The construction of a single-rail track, Shilovsky argued, would be much cheaper than building a conventional one. Especially the construction of railway bridges. For a gyro train, they will look like ordinary beams. Moreover, even a tightly stretched steel cable can play the role of a bridge!
On November 15, 1919, the minutes of the meeting of the Council of the military industry on river military shipbuilding and aircraft construction were prepared
Present: Chairman P. A. Bogdanov; members: A. F. Tolokontsev, K. N. Orlov, V. S. Mikhailov.
Invitees]: Comrade Medvedev - representative of Genmore
VA Crete - the technical part of the VP Council, SA Egiz - the technical part of the VP Council.
Heard: 2. About gyroscopic boats (technical report).
Decided: taking into account the urgent need to have fast, shallow-draft vessels on the rivers, armed with long-range artillery, easily transported by rail, depending on the change in the tactical situation, which, in turn, makes it possible, without much loss of time, to quickly create at any water line enough powerful flotilla, the Council of War Industry considers it expedient to allow Morky to order four experimental 45-ton heavy boats equipped with a gyroscopic device of the P. P. Shilovsky system, subject to the inventor's preliminary execution of the following.
1. In view of the limited period assigned for the execution of boats, it is necessary to submit a detailed plan for the distribution of work by individual factories and consent to the implementation of works from the involved factories by the scheduled time (some boats - by the beginning of navigation 1920, the rest - during navigation 1920) …
2. In view of the insecurity of the inventor in obtaining the necessary engines, it is necessary to have certain guarantees in obtaining engines from Morkom or from the military department, and it is necessary to take into account the negative opinion of Glakor on the issue of installing Russian Renault aircraft engines on boats.
3. Give Genmore a copy of the conclusion of Professor Zhukovsky with a proposal to oblige Shilovsky to test the gyroscope by placing it on a pendulum.
4. Upon completion of all negotiations by Genmore with Shilovsky, organize a special commission to supervise the execution of work on the construction of boats, consisting of: one representative from Genmore and one from the Council of War Industry.
5. With regard to financing, it is considered possible to immediately allocate not more than 2 million rubles for each of the boats. so that Shilovsky was presented with an estimate drawn up in relation to the final conditions and submitted for approval by the Council of the Military Industry, the same financing in the process of work should be carried out in a reporting procedure based on a valid verification of production costs.
Driving along the monorail will be smoother and more natural. "In nature, Shilovsky wrote," normal, correct, natural movement is movement along a line, not along a plane. " The speed of the gyro train was supposed to be considerable - 150-200 km / h. The experimental train was supposed to consist of two streamlined cars, each for fifty passengers.
Skeptics painted gruesome pictures of the disaster caused by a train falling when the gyroscope suddenly stopped. Shilovsky wrote with amazement: "Even engineers sometimes forget that an overclocked 100-pound top rotates due to one accumulated energy for about seven hours." Making special supports for the train at the stations is not difficult.
In 1921, construction began on the same single-rail road that we mentioned. The newspaper "Petrogradskaya Pravda" reported on August 14, 1921: "The preparatory work on the construction of the Petrograd-Gatchina single-rail road has been completed. All the necessary projects and schemes have been developed, there are materials, food and labor. The construction of the road will begin in the coming days. " The gyro-train was created as an electric locomotive with its own generating station, equipped with two internal combustion engines of 250 liters each. from. It was assumed that the train will consist of two streamlined cars - motor and passenger for 50 people (according to other sources - with a total capacity of 400 passengers). The speed of movement was supposed to reach 150 km / h. Therefore, the model train was blown through the wind tunnel of the Polytechnic Institute.
In four months, 12 kilometers of monorail track was built (from Detskoye Selo to Srednyaya Rogatka), and rolling stock was ordered to enterprises in St. Petersburg. However, in May 1922, funding for the project was discontinued.
Model of a gyroscopic steam locomotive by P. P. Shilovsky.
Of course, the single-rail road project looks interesting, at the time of the twenties its economic implications bribed - less cast iron for rails, less wood for sleepers, simpler arrows … and so on. That is, here it was possible to calculate the direct effect, but there were also moments that were only planned to be addressed. No security or infrastructure issues were identified in any way.
1. Safety - The first and most important issue is the stop of the flywheel. Even taking into account the high inertial moment, it stops for a very long time, being untwisted. And at this moment you need to do something. The flywheel could "jump" off the axis, and simply fly apart from the metal fatigue.
2. Infrastructure - It is not very clear how it was planned to form stations for the train. Depot also present questions
Pyotr Petrovich Shilovsky died in 1940, two years before that he published a monograph on gyroscopes. More than 80 years have passed since then. The gyroscopic railways, which Shilovsky predicted a great future, have not yet been built. However, his other ideas have long been realized, and a variety of gyro devices, as is known, have found the widest application on earth, people, in the air and space.
A few years before Shilovsky, a monorail with gyroscopic stabilization was patented by Louis Brennan in 1903.
For almost 80 years of his life, Brennan invented several interesting devices, but not all of his plans came true.
Louis Brennan lived for a long time in Australia, where he developed an original guided torpedo. In 1880, Brennan came to England to sell a patent for this invention to the British Admiralty. According to rumors, on this contract the inventor managed to earn a colossal amount - more than £ 100,000. This money allowed Brennan to devote himself to another hobby - the gyroscopic apparatus. In 1903 he patents a single-track gyroscopic train.
The money received from investors was enough for Louis Brennan for two full-size locomotives and several spectacular demonstrations.
A schematic diagram of a Louis Brennan gyroscopic stabilizer.
A, A ', B - pins
C - rotating ends of the gyroscope axes
D - wheel moving along the rail
E - rail
F - vehicle
G - movable stop
The demonstration had an effect. The British army became interested in the invention: Brennan received 2,000 pounds for further development (it was planned to issue £ 10,000, but this was opposed by the financial department) and built a second model with a length of 183 cm on them. The model was fully operational and could withstand one light man: Brennan built a small monorail and rolled my daughter on it. One of the most famous photographs of that time was a photo in which Brennan's daughter rides a monorail on a rope stretched one and a half meters from the ground between trees. This model has survived to this day: it can be seen in the London Science Museum. True, it is stored under glass, it was not started for about a hundred years.
The second demonstration convinced the army of the functionality of the new invention. Brennan was awarded numerous grants, and by 1909 he finally presented a full-size locomotive with a gyroscope. A 12-meter car with a 20-horsepower gasoline engine could reach speeds of up to 35 km / h.
On October 15, 1909, she drove 32 people along an experimental single-rail road - representatives of the army, industry and the press. By the following year, Brennan had built a second car, which was shown at a technical exhibition in London. Winston Churchill himself (then still young) rode it.
Still, skepticism won out over progress. Yes, single-rail roads were half the cost of construction, yes, gyro machines could be built with any streamlined shape, and their speed was much higher than that of steam locomotives of the same carrying capacity. But the disadvantages outweighed. Firstly, the gyro machine could not be left with the engine inoperative: it maintained balance only when the flywheel was rotating. It was equipped with stops, but they were not very comfortable, and each spin of the flywheel took a lot of time. In principle, all these are trifles, but conservatism outweighed. Brennan took up other things and made a huge contribution to the stabilization systems of helicopters, he died in honor, in a high position
From 1919 to 1926, he designs a helicopter. Brennan's aircraft was close to implementation, but funding for the project was discontinued in 1926. The technical progress that Brennan always strove for, in the end, and ruined him. In January 1932, Louis Brennan was hit by a car in Montreux, Switzerland.
The Brennan monorail itself was considered unpromising, but the Shilovsky stabilization system turned out to be more effective, as evidenced by the construction by Shilovsky in 1912 in England of a two-wheeled car "Girokar", which moved steadily.
Also in America, engineer Thomas Summers patented a whole family of gyro trucks for moving along narrow mountain trails.
The last single-rail railroad was the German August Schörl. He presented his invention at the same time as Brennan and demonstrated a working model on November 10, 1909 in Berlin. True, the five-meter Sherl locomotive did not entail financial grants - and the inventor safely abandoned this idea.
Today, there is no gyroscopic transport as such. It is likely that in a few years we will see the single-rail railways that Brennan, Scherl and Shilovsky dreamed of.