# Strange jet powered train



## PetalumaLoco (Aug 3, 2008)

Text from web page;



> In early 1970s in Russia there were tests of trains that had jet plane engines.
> Its maximum speed was around 249 km/h (around 180 mph). And it had engines from Yak-40 passenger jet plane.
> 
> Later they decided to put the engines from another Russian jet plane TU-134 to the passenger boat. So it could go as fast as 100 km/h (60 mph) on water when carrying passengers!


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## JAChooChoo (Aug 3, 2008)

PetalumaLoco said:


> Text from web page;
> 
> 
> 
> ...


New York Central Jet RDC

http://jalopnik.com/359202/new-york-centra...t-powered-train


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## WhoozOn1st (Aug 3, 2008)

JAChooChoo said:


> New York Central Jet RDChttp://jalopnik.com/359202/new-york-centra...t-powered-train


The link above notes that the engines for the New York Central experimental jet train came from a Convair B-36.

B-36 Photo

This aircraft is at the Castle Air Museum at Merced, CA, and was seen on the northbound Coast Starlight Tehachapi detour. The museum is right beside the tracks. Happened to be walking through the observation car at the time, and joined a group calling out the models of aircraft as they were spotted. Not to brag (okay, maybe a little), but I was the only one who recognized the B-36. Everybody else: "Oh yeah, B-36." Jet engines that woulda been used for the jet train are mounted on outer wings, in pods. An afterthought when performance didn't meet expectations.

The B-36 is the aircraft that doomed Northrop's B-49 flying wing, which was eventually resurrected as the B-2.

Returning southbound the next day from the Tehachapi detour I was ready for pictures of the planes at Merced, but that stretch is double tracked, or has a siding, and the view was entirely blocked by a freight. Rats!


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## PetalumaLoco (Aug 3, 2008)

Castle AFB Museum, and the B-36, on Google Maps;

Is that a Vulcan bomber in camo near the highway?

There's a boatload of planes in that view. Care to take a crack at ID'ing them?


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## WhoozOn1st (Aug 4, 2008)

PetalumaLoco said:


> Castle AFB Museum, and the B-36, on Google Maps;
> 
> Is that a Vulcan bomber in camo near the highway?
> 
> There's a boatload of planes in that view. Care to take a crack at ID'ing them?


That view is pretty tough on these old eyes, but yeah, definitely a Vulcan in camo - right by the tracks. Only a few positive IDs from that shot: a B-52, a B-47, a 707 variant (likely a KC-135), a C-119 "flying boxcar" (easy due to the twin-boom tail), F-4, either an F-102 or F-106 (to the right of the B-36 nose), and an F-105. And of course the B-36. What a monster!

That's without cheating by looking at the museum's website. Probably a B-17, maybe two B-29s. If memory serves, the museum at Hill AFB (Ogden, Utah), has 3 B-29s in various states of dilapidation. Never been to the museum at Merced, but can recommend the one at Ogden. Quite a collection, both indoors and outdoors.

BTW, Santa Fe Drive, the "highway," runs pretty much the length of the Central Valley. It disappears in places, or is reduced to a dirt road, only to reappear again later. Noticed that on the return from the Tehachapi detour.


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## PetalumaLoco (Aug 4, 2008)

WhoozOn1st

Thanks, I'm not going to call you right or wrong on the plane ID's, all sound about right to me. I ought to get over there one of these days and take a look-see.


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## PetalumaLoco (Aug 4, 2008)

JAChooChoo said:


>


I was wrong about what this is. It's a Russian test of deer whistles, before micro-miniaturization developed the small deer whistles we see today.


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