On a side note, it's hard to avoid thinking that Bennie was inspired to create his railplane by a ride installed in Kelvingrove Park for the 1911 Glasgow International Exhbition consisting of airship-shaped gondolas flying across the River Kelvin suspended below an aerial track.
A 119 metre long experimental track was built in Milngavie in 1929 (on the current site of Kelvin Timber). While a fully operational line was proposed between Glasgow and Edinburgh, it failed to attract enough financial backing and in 1937 Bennie was declared bankrupt.
Cont./
This plaque on Main Street in Milngavie on the outskirts of Glasgow marks the site of George Bennie's remarkable, but experimental, Railplane.
Invented in the 1920s, this was a zeppelin-shaped carriage suspended from an overhead track and powered by propellers. The aim was to create a two-tier railway with slower freight trains using the ground level track, with faster passenger railplanes flying above them.
Cont./
On a side note, it's hard to avoid thinking that Bennie was been inspired to create his railplane by a ride installed in Kelvingrove Park for the 1911 Glasgow International Exhbition, which consisted of airship-shaped gondolas flying across the River Kelvin suspended below an aerial track.
#glasgow #history #plaque #railplane #georgebennie #railways #weirdinventions #scottishinventors
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