I always liked how those maglev trains can hover on the tracks, and Japanese Researchers are working on another type of floating train with this prototype that you see here.
I realize that this prototype looks more like a plane than a train, but this uses air and several plane wings in order to levitate like it does.
You can watch the video of how it hovers after the jump. You will note that it does tend to drag a bit.
I believe that the plan is to create an “Aero Train” that can travel at speeds of 124 miles per hour, which is just a wee bit slower than bullet trains. It has to travel in a U-shaped concrete channel. I am guessing that someone will need to put up a fence around the concrete channel so that people do not fall in. After all, I don’t know how good the brakes are on this train.
For now, the prototype was presented at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics, but I can see the future could possibly be bright for this particular train. By the way, is this really a train, per se? I mean, it doesn’t look like you could drag a bunch of cars behind this, unless they could hover too.
