UAC Turbo
To reply to the comment (thanks for commenting by the way) from last week, yes, the TurboTrain.
The TurboTrain, a gas turbine powered, passive tilting, and articulated (use of Jacobs bogies, where two carriages rest on a single bogie in between, like on the Alstom TGV and AGV) trainset, designed in the 1960s by the United Aircraft Corporation of Hartford, Connecticut, was the first true high-speed train in North America and the only in Canada. Instead of diesel engines, the TurboTrain uses a set of up to twelve (on both ends) Pratt & Whitney aeroderivative gas turbines to generate electricity for the traction motors. Compared to diesel engines, gas turbines have a much higher power density (kilowatt per litre of engine displacement, i.e. they produce the same amount of power as diesel engines while weighing a lot less). The passive-tilting passenger carriages of the TurboTrain used a design similar to the Spanish Talgo trains and were lower than conventional carriages.
In Canada, the TurboTrain was used by the Canadian National Railway and later Via Rail Canada between 1968 and 1984 for services between Toronto and Montreal, where the train regularly hit 120 mph. With stops at Dorval, Kingston, and Guildwood, the fastest scheduled Turbo (Train 62/63) only needed 3 hours and 59 minutes to travel between downtown Toronto and downtown Montreal with a start-stop average speed of 84 mph (the fastest Via Rail service today, Train 66/67, with a top speed of 100 mph, requires 4 hours and 32 minutes for the same journey while only stopping at Dorval and Oshawa).
Although suffered from technical problems in her early days, the rebuilt TurboTrains provided 11 years of reliable service to the CN and Via Rail with an availability rate of over 97% since 1973. With a top speed of 170.8 mph (275 km/h) achieved between Trenton and New Brunswick, NJ, the TurboTrain is the fastest production train ever produced yet in North America. If you are interested, please visit the YouTube channel of High Speed Rail Canada for some footages of the Turbo. Please also visit Wikipedia for a more detailed article covering the TurboTrain.
Next week, we can talk about a train which uses magnetic levitation (Maglev) that holds the absolute world speed record for trains.
The TurboTrain, a gas turbine powered, passive tilting, and articulated (use of Jacobs bogies, where two carriages rest on a single bogie in between, like on the Alstom TGV and AGV) trainset, designed in the 1960s by the United Aircraft Corporation of Hartford, Connecticut, was the first true high-speed train in North America and the only in Canada. Instead of diesel engines, the TurboTrain uses a set of up to twelve (on both ends) Pratt & Whitney aeroderivative gas turbines to generate electricity for the traction motors. Compared to diesel engines, gas turbines have a much higher power density (kilowatt per litre of engine displacement, i.e. they produce the same amount of power as diesel engines while weighing a lot less). The passive-tilting passenger carriages of the TurboTrain used a design similar to the Spanish Talgo trains and were lower than conventional carriages.
TurboTrain in Via Rail livery
In Canada, the TurboTrain was used by the Canadian National Railway and later Via Rail Canada between 1968 and 1984 for services between Toronto and Montreal, where the train regularly hit 120 mph. With stops at Dorval, Kingston, and Guildwood, the fastest scheduled Turbo (Train 62/63) only needed 3 hours and 59 minutes to travel between downtown Toronto and downtown Montreal with a start-stop average speed of 84 mph (the fastest Via Rail service today, Train 66/67, with a top speed of 100 mph, requires 4 hours and 32 minutes for the same journey while only stopping at Dorval and Oshawa).
The Turbo in its original Canadian National livery
Although suffered from technical problems in her early days, the rebuilt TurboTrains provided 11 years of reliable service to the CN and Via Rail with an availability rate of over 97% since 1973. With a top speed of 170.8 mph (275 km/h) achieved between Trenton and New Brunswick, NJ, the TurboTrain is the fastest production train ever produced yet in North America. If you are interested, please visit the YouTube channel of High Speed Rail Canada for some footages of the Turbo. Please also visit Wikipedia for a more detailed article covering the TurboTrain.
The Turbo at Kingston Station (Princess St. in the background)
Next week, we can talk about a train which uses magnetic levitation (Maglev) that holds the absolute world speed record for trains.
Comments
I think MagLev was one of the options discussed for the High-Speed rail service between Calgary and Edmonton, so I'm looking forward to next week's post!