TGV 001
Last week I went long winded on the original Bullet Train from Japan. This week, I'm writing about a train having played somewhat of a similar role to the Series 0 but has never seen commercial service. She is the TGV 001, first of what has become the world famous fast train of Europe, le train à grande vitesse, the TGV, the high speed train. It is very evident that the TGV 001 set the general tone for styling of the later TGVs Unlike the later production TGVs, the TGV 001 is an experimental articulated gas turbine-electric trainset. Built by Alstom (then called GEC-Alsthom), this prototype trainset began testing in 1972. The SNCF, la Société Nationale des Chermins de fer Français, the French National Railways chose to power their fast train with fossil fuel and on board power generation in order to avoid the infrastructure cost of having to erect cantenaries along the railroad mainline. However this later became expensive and unpractical after the 1973 oil crisis. Al...
