Date: 09/11/2020

George Bennie was born in Auldhouse, a small district on the south side of Glasgow, in 1892, the son of a hydraulic engineer. He loved to invent things and in 1921 he came up with the idea of a ^railplane^ which would revolutionise public transport. He gained a patent for the design in 1923. Lacking formal engineering qualifications, he employed a consultant engineer, Hugh Fraser, to undertake the technical design.

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The Glasgow inventor whose futuristic plan to revolutionise the railways nearly took off

Evening Times

1 George Bennie was born in Auldhouse, a small district on the south side of Glasgow, in 1892, the son of a hydraulic engineer. He loved to invent

Related images

A poster showing the George Bennie Railplane prototype in operation near Milngavie in the early 1930s.
Location: Bennie Railplane
Company: Bennie Railplane
//1930 John Furnevel Collection

This is a frame from 'The George Bennie Railplane System of Transport', courtesy of the BFI National Archive.
The image shows the railplane's 'car' under construction. The location is the Inchinnan aircraft Factory where rigid airships were built from 1915 to 1921.
The full film is on the BFI Player.
Location: Inchinnan Aircraft Factory
Company: Beardmore Engineering Co
//1929 Courtesy of the BFI National Archive

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Tags: x George Bennie x George Bennie Railplane