It rose above the fens to offer a glimpse of the future of high-speed transport before disappearing without a trace – but now the Cambridgeshire ‘hovertrain’ is set to take off once more.
Now little more than a distant memory, in the 1960s and 70s the raised magnetic railway built between the fenland villages of Sutton and Earith was seen as the space-age solution to 60s congestion chaos, and was poised to revolutionise public transport before it was abandoned.
But now a new project from Cambridge University is aiming to resurrect the grand experiment, following the discovery of rarely-seen archive footage.
The hovertrain project was a significant British research and development scheme that combined Sir Christopher Cockerell’s hovercraft invention with Sir Eric Laithwaite’s work on linear induction motors.
It was hoped the new technology could provide the basis for a brand new railway network, before the French got there first with their similar ‘Aerotrain’ scheme.
Convinced the scheme was a winner, in 1967 the Government invested £5.25 million in the project, and Tracked Hovercraft Ltd was formed.
With the company’s offices and laboratories based in Cambridge, the route of the Old Bedford River, between the villages of Earith and Sutton Gault, was chosen as the ideal test track, and a full-scale concrete monorail track was built in 1969.
However the experiment was beset by problems, many caused by the soft fenland ground, and in 1973 funding was finally cut and the project was ended.
Now, as part of ongoing investigations into ‘fenland utopias’ by Cambridge University's Cambridge Archaeological Unit (CAU), the story of the hovertrain has been rediscovered for a new generation.
The scheme is the subject of a new short film The Train that Floats in the Sky , produced in partnership with Peterborough’s Railworld as part of the Heritage Lottery Fund grant-aided Ouse Washes Landscape Partnership.
Created by motion graphic designer Nick Edwards, the 14-minute film features original period footage and interviews with local researcher Eddy Edwards, Railworld trustee Brian Pearce and CAU director Chris Evans, and captures the moment of discovery of a lost hovertrain archive.
You can watch the film in full, here.