Sleek, Futuristic Transit System to Be Previewed : Transportation: Representatives of the San Gabriel Valley Assn. of Cities will be introduced to a new elevated railway now in use in West Germany in a presentation by Magnetic Transit of America Inc.

It sounds like something from a Star Trek rerun: a sleek train gliding quietly along slender elevated guideways, propelled by a traveling electromagnetic wave, suspended on a cushion of air.

But the real thing has been in service since August in West Berlin. And a two-mile track between terminals will be completed at West Germany’s Frankfurt International Airport by 1993. Closer to home, a $60-million, 1.1-mile system will begin operating in Las Vegas in 1992.

Even the technology’s name sounds like something out of science fiction: Magnetic levitation, or maglev for short.

The San Gabriel Valley Assn. of Cities will have a look at the futuristic transit system tonight in a presentation made by Los Angeles-based Magnetic Transit of America Inc.

A subsidiary of the international electronics and engineering firm, AEG Aktiengesellschaft of Frankfurt, West Germany, MTA holds the exclusive North American license for AEG’s magnetic levitation technology and is providing the expertise for the Las Vegas People Mover.

Association members were enthusiastic about the possibilities of the transit system for the San Gabriel Valley.

“Everyone was for putting (MTA) on the program,” said Harvey Holden, executive director of the association. “We’re taking it as a serious presentation.”

The association, which has representatives from 31 valley cities, unanimously approved a resolution in May supporting a commuter rail line serving the valley from San Bernardino to Los Angeles.

“The San Gabriel Valley has become a tremendous corridor (from Los Angeles) going out to San Bernardino,” Holden said. “It’s important that we pursue the future of transportation.”

“It’s very exciting,” said Alhambra Mayor Mike Blanco, hailing maglev as a step beyond other technologies.

“It’s an option we’d certainly keep open, especially if we’re building a new system without existing rail lines and terminals,” said Blanco, who chairs the association’s transportation committee.

His main concern was the cost. Otherwise, he was sold on the idea.

“It’s real quiet, environmentally sound and aesthetically a very attractive vehicle,” he said.

The principle that makes the trains run involves magnetic attraction.

The cars are driven by an electrically created magnetic field that travels along the steel guideways. Speed--the average is 40 to 50 m.p.h.--is controlled by varying the frequency of the electric current.

The fully automated, driverless cars can be monitored with closed-circuit television links from a central office. Controllers can communicate with any car or station platform via a two-way communication system. Because no fuel is used, there are no air emissions and no pollution.

The weight of the cars, already lighter because they don’t carry conventional drive systems, is borne by magnetic forces instead of wheels.

Eight powerful magnets mounted underneath each car are attracted upward toward an iron core embedded in the guideways, said Anders Eberhardson, assistant marketing manager of MTA. The load of the car and passengers forces the car downward, maintaining a gap between the magnets and the guideway so that the car “floats” along on about an inch of air, reducing friction and noise.

To demonstrate just how little noise is generated, the people mover in Las Vegas is routed through a library and a children’s museum.

“It’s that quiet,” Blanco said.

Another advantage is that because the train runs on elevated guideways, there would be no conflict with existing traffic during construction, he said. He suggested that, in the future, the paths of the Southern Pacific and Santa Fe railroads might be used as routes for such a system.

If a half-cent sales tax proposed by the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission is approved by voters next year, some of the funds, intended to alleviate gridlock, may go toward purchasing the railroad rights of way for some kind of transportation system, he said.

A majority of city councils, representing more than half the county’s population, must approve putting the tax measure to a vote before the commission can decide in November whether to request putting it on the 1990 ballot.