The physics made so much sense. Just use magnets to eliminate the friction between wheels and rails, and a train might easily and smoothly be propelled to vast speeds. With few moving parts, wear and tear would be minimal, so operating costs would be low. They would offer a viable alternative to intercity air travel, provided you didn't have to cross oceans.
Within a few years, several other inventors built upon this idea. Among the more notable was Robert H Goddard, who would go on to fame as the father of rocketry. In 1904, he completed a creative writing assignment by conceptualising a magnetically levitated and propelled train in a vacuum tunnel.
In 1906, Tom Johnson, a streetcar baron and celebrated mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, filed a patent for a high-speed rail system based on magnetic levitation.
In his autobiography, My Story , Johnson recounted how he built a working maglev model in his home's basement, capable of carrying a person. After some failures, he got a hanging monorail-style design working. The carriage travelled as fast as a 90-foot test track would allow, yet so smoothly that the passenger could hardly tell it was moving.
Sceptical contemporaries called Johnson's project "Greased Lightning". He preferred to call it "Slip-Slide".