Son of Monorail

Puzzled farmers of the plateau country between Paris and Chartres have been scratching their heads and stroking their whiskers at the sight of a 170-m.p.h. vehicle that flies without wings astride a single concrete rail. The streamlined craft that keeps the grands-peres guessing is a half-scale experimental model of France's wheelless, one-car "aerotrain." After a year of tests, the French government just gave the go-ahead for construction of a full-sized model that will whisk 84 passengers down a 16-mile test run at speeds of up to 250 m.p.h.

Progenitor of the aerotrain is 49-year-old Engineer-Designer Jean Berlin, who in August 1965, after eight years at the drawing board, received a $600,000 grant from France to build and test his invention on a 31-mile stretch of unused railroad track between the villages of Gometz and Limours. Bertin, who already had the backing of a $1,000,000 company made up of 18 industrial giants such as the French National Railroads, Nord Aviation and Hispano-Suiza, ripped up the standard-gauge track between the two somnolent towns, replaced it with a concrete monorail shaped--in profile--like an inverted T. Berlin's aerotrain resembles a sleek silver bus, rides less than an inch above the rail on a cushion of air produced by two 50-h.p. Renault Gordini engines, propels and brakes itself with a 260-h.p. jet-booster aircraft engine rear-mounted on its roof.

The aerotrain, says Bertin modestly, "is intended to complement the car for distances between 70 and 140 miles." With that in mind, he flew to the U.S. this week. His objective: the formation of a joint Franco-American firm to build a demonstration aerotrain that could cut travel time between New York and Washington to an hour and a half.

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