Efficient fast rigid airshipping ideas

Looking at an article in the NYT this morning, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/05/business/worldbusiness/05dirigible.html?_r=1&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1215270217-kK5cYYAELURprOcmA7IXZw
reminds me of a former girlfriend's dream (1985-ish) of resuming use of rigid airships, her one technological thought, as far as I knew. It also reminds me of one of the ideas I wrote about in my "Its Down to Earth" novel (2007),
http://www.escalatorhi.com/techscifi/it's%20down%20to%20earth.html where neutral-buoyancy rigid airships could be built in the shape of high speed jet aircraft and travel at those high speeds but not needing to use energy to provide lift. (It also used tracking beam energy from SPS, in the story, instead of carrying fuel to power its flight). And in reading the NYT article, I suddenly had the idea of a form of tethered rigid dirigible type airship, except towed along between a pair of cables alongside, which span between towers much as do current-day high tension power lines; the dirigible would be tethered to the cables, defining its positioning as it floated along, thus enabling it to operate in much more severe weather that can free-flying dirigibles; and if the cables themselves move to provide the tow of the dirigible, it would not even need to carry engines nor fuel except perhaps for emergency detachment and descent safely. Could be a highly efficient added transportation mode especially across rough terrain or above already highly populated areas with little disruption of the terrain below except for pylon footings.