NORFOLK - Old Dominion University's ill-fated maglev train, stymied by years of failed experiments, needed to be moved down its track to make way for campus construction.

Maglev scientists decided that since they had to mess with it anyway, they'd try some things they'd been testing in the laboratory.

So one weekend last month, without telling anyone, they did an unscheduled trial run.

And the train ran.

They didn't have enough time to shift every new gizmo and gadget from the test bed to the vehicle, but that didn't seem to matter.

It didn't shake and shimmy as it had in the past.

While it wasn't a full-blown test, scientists levitated the train multiple times over various parts of the elevated guideway, keeping it suspended in air about a half-inch on every try. And they moved it down the track by gravity because the guideway is on a slight tilt. The motor was never turned on.

Levitating and propelling the train down the track will take many more months of work. But the success was heartening.

A working maglev vehicle has eluded ODU for years. It was originally supposed to start transporting students across campus by 2002. When tested, the train levitated and moved, but instead of floating on a cushion of air, it bumped, rattled and vibrated. Technical problems, cost overruns, unpaid bills and lawsuits derailed the project.

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With $16 million already spent, ODU took control of the project from its originator, Georgia-based American Maglev Technology Inc. ODU's Office of Research has kicked in $94,000 to keep the research moving forward for a year while other sources of money are sought.

It's no longer a transportation project but a research one, with a goal of producing a low-cost prototype. ODU officials say the system could be years and millions of dollars away from being usable as mass transit.

Laboratory tests by ODU over the past two years have proven successful - so successful that Thomas Alberts, the aerospace engineering professor who is leading the research, and his team were preparing to move a test sled to the track to expand the work when the construction got in the way.

They were told they had to move the main maglev vehicle and won't have access to the track for several months. So they seized the opportunity for an impromptu test.

Among the changes: They switched the computer controls from a centralized to a decentralized system, and they rebuilt sensors to monitor the gap between the train and the track much more often - 14,000 times a second.

After a few weeks of switching newly developed computers and other equipment from the lab to the train, they were ready for the test.

The women's soccer team, practicing on a nearby field, saw it.

"We moved it, then I could hear some noise - cheers and whistles," Alberts said. He turned and saw team members facing the train with their arms raised in victory.

The triumph was short-lived. Without warning, construction crews removed the transformer used to power the vehicle.

"We levitated it, we moved it, we walked away and the transformer was gone," Alberts said.

So it's back to more controlled experiments. Alberts said he was not surprised by the results.

"I knew it would work," he said.