This work deals with the design of a linear induction machine for the application in the railway system. The railway regulations and standards give the boundary conditions for the design. The main design tool is the Finite Element program MEGA. In the first part, fundamental laws and design constraints are given to introduce the reader to the tools used further on. Due to railway restrictions, the available space for the design is limited. The second part deals with the linear eddy current brake. This machine has been available for measurements and is therefore used for verification of the calculations. Measurement data derived from own measurements as well as from publications is compared with calculation results. The third part involves two possible designs for the linear induction machine, which are compared with each other. These designs arise from the space restrictions and are namely the fractional slot winding and the integer slot winding approach. For the design it is assumed to use water cooled coils to obtain maximum forces. In the last part, the measurements on a linear induction machine are presented, which were carried out in the laboratory of the Institute of Electrical Energy Conversion. These measurements were made with the modified eddy current brake.weiterlesen