a trapezoidal girder almost as wide as the top of the T. The reaction plate for the LIM was moved to the underside of the horizontal portion of the T on one side, extending vertically down, while the other side contained the electrical conductors that provided power. In such an arrangement, rain, snow and debris would simply fall off the plates. The new guideway design was simulated at the Atlas Computer Laboratory. This work included the generation of films showing the vehicle in-action, using a Stromberg-Carlson SC4020 microfilm recorder. Laithwaite joins While the hovertrain was being developed, BR was running an extensive research project on the topic of high-speed wheeled trains at their newly opened British Rail Research Division in Derby. This was the first group to characterise the hunting oscillation in detail. Their work clearly suggested that careful design of the suspension system could eliminate the problem. This would allow high-speed trains to be built using conventional steel-wheel technology. Although high-speed travel would require new lines to be laid, expensive ones, such a train could use existing rail infrastructure at lower speeds. This would allow such a train to approach existing stations at lower speeds, greatly reducing capital costs of bringing the service into cities. The inter-city sections could be re-laid for higher speeds, where the infrastructure costs were generally lower anyway. BR also showed that the capital cost advantages of the hovertrain concept were offset by the higher vehicle costs; the tracked hovercraft concept made sense for a smaller number of vehicles or longer lines where the capital costs were concentrated in the tracks, but neither of these characterised BR's operations. Meanwhile, having exhausted their research abilities using small models, the Hovercraft Development team had been petitioning their parent organisation, the National Research Development Corporation (NRDC), for additional funding to build a full-sized test track. NDRC was unsuccessful in raising new capital from the government and decided to put in £1 million from their own pre-assigned discretionary budget to start construction of a track, hoping that additional funding would be forthcoming from industry. On 1 April 1967, Hovercraft Development was officially transferred to National Physical Laboratory. Seeking to protect their investment, and finding little external funding, the NRDC decided to spin off the hovertrain group as Tracked Hovercraft Ltd. (THL). They also decided to spool out the funding over four years, starting with a £1 million grant for