Abandoned and rediscovered:
Russia’s incredible 1970 jet-powered turbojet train - built to travel over 250km/h - has been found rusting outside a railcar factory englishrussia.com/2014/05/26/aba…
Russia’s incredible 1970 jet-powered turbojet train - built to travel over 250km/h - has been found rusting outside a railcar factory englishrussia.com/2014/05/26/aba…
The USSR's turbojet train - the SVL - was an experiment, roiding-up a standard railcar. It never made it to public service. (Imagine trying to turn that thing round...) But it wasn't the first jet-powered train, nor first to be powered by something intended to move aircraft...
The first jet-powered high speed train was in the USA.
This wasn't the Space Race, this was the RailJet race - 4 yrs before the USSR. The New York Central Railroad's M-497 "Black Beetle" of 1966 used ex-bomber plane engines did 183mph. BUT. Think of bridges. And ballast stones...
This wasn't the Space Race, this was the RailJet race - 4 yrs before the USSR. The New York Central Railroad's M-497 "Black Beetle" of 1966 used ex-bomber plane engines did 183mph. BUT. Think of bridges. And ballast stones...
In 1919, a team in Germany assembled the first known propeller-powered train. It wasn't pressed into doing high speeds - allegedly because of concerns about its somewhat Heath-Robinson construction. The inventor was Otto Steinitz. (3/X)
In 1921, the Russian "Aerowagon" achieved more than 85 km/h. Its engineer, Valerian Abakovsky, and eight others, died in a terrible crash on one of its proving runs. The concept was not progressed...
The most famous of all propeller-powered trains was Germany's 230km/h Schienenzeppelin, of 1930. This experimental machine had 2 BMW aircraft engines and a Bauhaus-style interior. It was dismantled by 1939: it was dangerous at stations, couldn't haul coaches & was tricky to turn.
