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Lyle Zapato

The St. Clair Hypertrain

Lyle Zapato | 2006-06-11.8020 LMT | Technology

Hyperinventor John Quincy St. Clair is back with a new patent application: Permanent Magnet Propulsion System.

This one's slightly more conventional than his previous propulsion/transportation systems since it doesn't allow for teleportation, passing through solid objects, interstellar travel, or astral projection between distant paraterrestrial worlds. No, this time his objective is simply to move a train:

This invention is a propulsion system for a train that uses permanent magnets mounted on a rotating iron cylindrical plate carrying a radial current in order to create a spacetime curvature distortion which pulls the locomotive along the track.

Hypertrain
The plate with five magnets mounted on the front (left) spins, distorting
spacetime and thus pulling the train forward along a conventional track.

While distorting spacetime is all very well and good -- and certainly safer than monorails! -- I still feel pneumatic propulsion is a safer alternative since it creates pressure buffers between individual cars, keeping them from colliding. St. Clair hasn't addressed the problem of other trains on the track in front of his hypertrain being sucked backwards into the swirling vortex of spacetime created by the rotating magnets. Perhaps some sort of accordion-like bumper device mounted ahead of the propulsion system would help avoid deadly accidents.

End of post.