Brush Electrical Machines and British Railways Board were awarded contracts to study the performance of LIM's and to test a motor with its associated control on a railcar over a straight track. BEM's interest lay in the experimental vindication of their ability to design and build a motor to a given specification, as well as in gaining experience of thyristor converter equipment in an arduous environment.

BR's interest centred on the effect of LIM's on vehicle suspension design, related to magnetically suspended vehicles, (MAGLEV)  particularly the variation of motor forces when traversing reaction rail discontinuities.

Useful experience could also be obtained in designing, constructing and using linear motor tracks on an operational site.

The tests were carried out with a linear motor mounted on a Class 101 DMU RDB975018 and RDB975019. The trials were to evaluate the difficulties of laying the aluminium/steel reaction rail, which the linear motor would utilise, down the centre of the track. The motor never provided propulsion as far as I know but was used to test the practicalities of the system.