Bennie Airspeed Railway proposal - 1953
In 1953 British Railways closed two railway lines on the Isle of Wight (Newport to Freshwater, and Brading to Bembridge). George Bennie proposed his Airspeed Railway to replace these as well as the rest of the railway lines on the Island. The proposed system would have used a number of cars, each carrying 50 people, suspended from a single rail some 14ft from the ground. Each car would have been individually powered by an air screw at each end and would travel at up to 125 mph. The intention was to have a 28 mile, circular route connecting the main population centres on the Island. George Bennie was reported as saying the complete system with 12 cars would cost £4M and that he had the funding available. [1]
To get approval the scheme needed the approval of the British Transport Commission.
By later that year, other proposals were 'looked far more favourable', and the proposal for a George Bennie Airspeed Railway on the Isle of Wight did not advance further than the dream stage.[2]
Two problems (as well as many others) with the proposal were:
- It had been initially suggested that a car 'could run every minute' which might have handled peak, summer passenger numbers; but this was later debunked as the time needed for passengers to get on and off the cars at each station had not been considered - that time would have limited the intervals between cars on the single rail.
- Another problem was that the Airspeed track could not be routed under existing bridges or through the tunnels, and this hadn't been taken into account.
