Abstract: To address the severe wear caused by rubber-tire adhesion drive in traditional suspended trains, a linear switched reluctance motor (LSRM) is introduced as the traction core. To overcome the drawbacks of large thrust fluctuation and low thrust density of conventional LSRMs, an incomplete surface-mounted permanent magnet linear switched reluctance motor (PMLSRM) is proposed. An alternating iron-permanent magnet arrangement is adopted on the primary surface, which enhances the air-gap magnetic field and suppresses the cogging force by discretizing the magnetomotive force distribution. An equivalent magnetic circuit model is established to investigate the influences of permanent magnet coverage and thickness on the electromagnetic performance. Simulation results show that, when the permanent magnet coverage is 90% and the thickness is 6 mm, the average electromagnetic thrust of the proposed motor is increased by 24.8% and the thrust fluctuation is reduced by 12% compared with the traditional LSRM, indicating superior comprehensive electromagnetic performance.