http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-05-ground-effect-plane-train-flies-inches-ground.html
Yes, this is a crazy idea. So are all the other crazy ideas that have emanated from China, Japan, Germany and France, including 1000 mph trains in vacuum tubes, and those buses that roll along multi-lane busy streets up in the air with car traffic going under them. Also there's a Chinese scheme about loading and unloading trains while they are under way. Crazy yes, but it's thinking outside the box.
Here's the point:
Why other countries? Why not us? Where is the US "Silicon Valley" of transportation and transit innovation? Buying obsolete technology (by the time it will become operational) off the shelves of other countries is not "winning the future." It's buying the past.
Yet, all the HSR-pushers aren't interested in any of that. Why not? There's no money in it for them. What the Democrats and the Obama Administration want is a quick fix for the 2012 elections. For everybody else, it's about the money, not the transportation.
And that's what's wrong with high-speed rail for the US. It's not who we are.
