British Rail `planned flying saucer`
British Rail once entertained hopes of transporting passengers by nuclear-powered "flying saucer", it emerged today.
Rail managers filed an application for a patent in December 1970 for a space vehicle powered by "controlled thermonuclear fusion reaction ignited by one or more pulsed laser beams".
The space vehicle, with its passenger compartment upstairs, like the pod of a jumbo jet, would have been cheap to run and super-fast, according to inventor Charles Osmond Frederick.
The detailed plans, made on behalf of the British Railways Board, were found on the European Patent Office website with the patent granted in March 1973.
A patent document reads: "The present invention relates to a space vehicle. More particularly it relates to a power supply for a space vehicle which offers a source of sustained thrust for the loss of a very small mass of fuel.
"Thus it would enable very high velocities to be attained in a space vehicle and in fact the prolonged acceleration of the vehicle may in some circumstances be used to simulate gravity."
The high-tech world envisaged by rail bosses failed to go further than the drawing board.
The patent lapsed because of non-payment of renewal fees.
Space experts dismissed the design as a pure science fiction and based on a fusion process that does not exist yet.
Michel van Baal, of the European Space Agency in the Netherlands told The Times: "I have had a look at the plans and they don`t look very serious to me at all."
