RTV 31 Lowered down for Cosmetic Restoration by the Volunteers

pearcebriant

5 days ago

1 min read

After months of meticulous work building bespoke support cradle/beds to lay the two parts of RTV on - Crowland Crane are supporting the volunteers by carefully lowering and repositioning RTV 31 - Research Test Vehicle 31 to a new home - Much lower down and East / West orientation! The amazing hulk has had to be split in two to enable the safe lowering! She reached a top speed of 107MPH in 1973 before exorbitant installation costs forced cancelation of the whole endeavour. When contactors were helping the volunteers on the dismantling of RTV for lowering they found two seats fastened in - We reckon two of the engineers actually travelled on RTV During the tests!! - Who were they?? RTV was built in 1971/2 for the trials of the Linear Drive Motor on the Cambridgeshire Hovertrain Project!! ‘The Train Without Wheels’ - 3 miles of track was built- from Earith to Sutton Gault, but a collapse at mile one reduced the distance of the trials. Volunteers and ex employees saved the hulk from the scrap man and brought RTV 31 to Peterborough in 1994 to the Railworld Wildlife Haven to tell the story of Man's incredible passion for ‘High Speed Land Transport’ - RTV is being lowered today by Crowland Crane for cosmetic restoration- lots more news to follow - Plus ‘Fenland on Film’ are creating a superb documentary to tell the amazing story, featuring some of the Scientists and Engineers that worked on the Space Aged Project. ITV Anglia News 18:00