Émile Bachelet

Émile Bachelet (30 January 1863 – 2 May 1946) was a French-American inventor.^[1] In the 1880s, he worked in the United States as an electrician. After discovering therapeutic qualities of magnetic fields especially with arthritis patients, he began to commercialize this practice. While doing so Bachelet began to experiment with magnetic fields.

Model of the magnetic levitation train (1914)

Bachelet (left) with model

Bachelet was born in Nanterre, the son of Henri Bachelet. He immigrated to the United States in 1883^[2] and became an American citizen in 1889.^[3] He died in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Bachelet was granted U.S. patent 1,020,942 in 1912 for his "Levitating Transmitting Apparatus." which was meant to transfer mail and small packages on a cart which was levitated above a track of electromagnets. The patent also talked of a large version transporting freight or passengers. In 1912 Bachelet demonstrated a model to the press in Mount Vernon, New York.^[4][5]

A vaudeville show called The Bachelet Mystery opened in London and New York in early 1913 demonstrating the wonders of electromagnetism using equipment supplied by Bachelet.^[6]

In 1914 he presented his model to the Admiralty in London, England where a one-meter-long aluminum mobile agent hovered in a state of levitation, one centimeter above an 11-meter-long guide (which was the first example of a magnetic levitation train). The press used the words "flying train".

Winston Churchill who assisted the demonstration said it was the most wonderful thing he had ever seen in his life.^[7][8][9]

The Bachelet Levitated Railway Syndicate Limited was registered 1914 Jul 9 in London, just weeks before the start of WWI.^[10]

References

1. "Guide to the Emile Bachelet Collection". Archives Center, National Museum of American History.
2. U.S. Passport Applications, 1795–1925
3. Massachusetts, State and Federal Naturalization Records, 1798–1950
4. "INVENTS WHEELLESS CAR". New-York Tribune 1912 Mar 15 page 8.
5. "Here's an Aerial Vehicle Which Darts Along Poised Above Its Roadway". New-York Tribune 1912 June 2 Images 21 & 23.
6. "The Bachelet Mystery". The New York Clipper 1913 Jan 18 page 8. 1913.
7. MacNair, Miles (2008). "Emile Bachelet (1863–1946): The Showman and the Flying Train". Transactions of the Newcomen Society. 78 (2). Transactions of the Newcomen Society Vol 78, 2008 Issue 2: 235–260. doi:10.1179/175035208X317693. S2CID 110722191.
8. Larry H. Spruill (2009). Mount Vernon. Arcadia. ISBN 9780738562650.
9. Kevin Baker (4 October 2016). America the Ingenious: How a Nation of Dreamers, Immigrants, and Tinkerers ... Artisan Books. ISBN 9781579656942.
10. "Bachelet Levitated Railway Syndicate, Ltd". The Electrical Review 1914 Jul 24 page 143. 24 July 1914.