World's fastest "jet train" creator interviewed

[CHamilton]

The Jet Train Roars Back: Don Wetzel Talks about His Record-Breaking Ride, Jet-Powered Snow Blowers and LEGOmaniacs

When railroad engineer Don Wetzel and his colleagues with the now defunct New York Central Railroad decided to build a high-speed train in the 1960s, they salvaged a pair of GE jet engines from an Air Force bomber and attached them to the roof of a stock commuter car. On July 23, 1966, Wetzel put on a white pilot’s helmet and sped down a straight section of Ohio tracks at 183 miles per hour. The train set a world record for self-propelled trains and got recognized by Guinness World Records.

The rail speed record still stands in the U.S., but jet train was scrapped long ago.

 

[Devil's Advocate]

TK: This story has a sad ending.

DW: It doesn’t. The goal was to prove that high-speed rail was possible in the U.S. We absolutely proved the validity of the concept that very high speeds could be attained using conventional rail equipment.

In 1966 their experimental record breaking speed was only 30 mph faster than the routine commercial speeds of the Tokyo - Osaka line. It was done on conventional rails with conventional hardware but not around curves or with large consists. Today this still unbroken record is matched or exceeded by an ever growing list of countries which use all manner of technological approaches, except for the one we invented. It's amazing to think how much various technologies have changed over the last five decades and how little of that change has been leveraged toward improving America's passenger rail network. Not just in the US but all of North, South, and Central America. Today we're excited to see a brand new fleet of 1980's style retro Boxliners with a top speed that was old news a half century ago. Makes you wonder if our days of innovation and can-do spirit are mostly behind us, which would seem to be a sad ending indeed. In any case thanks for the link. Plenty of food for thought.

 

[jis]

At the end of the day it was a phenomenal failure and nothing came of it. The money went down the drain without producing any viable technology. It is really pretty useless to put together a random collection of things to achieve a point of data and the be completely unable to do anything with it. It would appear that they literally had no second step planned after this first step. Sad....

 

[xyzzy]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-497_Black_Beetle



The interesting aspect to me: apparently NYC was so broke that they couldn't imagine installing much continuous welded rail, so they were studying HSR over bolted rail. Nobody would dream of that now.

 

[Bob Dylan]

At the end of the day it was a phenomenal failure and nothing came of it. The money went down the drain without producing any viable technology. It is really pretty useless to put together a random collection of things to achieve a point of data and the be completely unable to do anything with it. It would appear that they literally had no second step planned after this first step. Sad....

Sounds just like Chrysler and the Turbine Cars they tried to Develop and Market in the 50s and 60s! Of course they went Bankrupt, sold out to Mercedes, and now belong to one of those Generic Unknown Investment Cartels even though their commercials Feature "Imported from Detroit" and Star Bob Dylan!

 

[railiner]

At the end of the day it was a phenomenal failure and nothing came of it. The money went down the drain without producing any viable technology. It is really pretty useless to put together a random collection of things to achieve a point of data and the be completely unable to do anything with it. It would appear that they literally had no second step planned after this first step. Sad....

Sounds just like Chrysler and the Turbine Cars they tried to Develop and Market in the 50s and 60s! Of course they went Bankrupt, sold out to Mercedes, and now belong to one of those Generic Unknown Investment Cartels even though their commercials Feature "Imported from Detroit" and Star Bob Dylan!

I thought that Chrysler was now owned by the Fiat Group--not exactly an "unknown investment cartel"....

Time will tell, of course, but I believe the 'marriage' of Chrysler and Fiat is working out better synergistically speaking, than that with Daimler ....

 

[Ispolkom]

At the end of the day it was a phenomenal failure and nothing came of it. The money went down the drain without producing any viable technology. It is really pretty useless to put together a random collection of things to achieve a point of data and the be completely unable to do anything with it. It would appear that they literally had no second step planned after this first step. Sad....

It's only sad if you think of it as a corporate project that was intended to create a useable product. Rationally, it's, well, it's a stupid idea. Did anyone think of noise, for instance?

On the other hand, it's great if you think of it as an actual, working, nine-year-old boy's fantasy: a superfast jet-powered train. It's something out of Tom Swift. And it's really cool looking.

Once you look at it as public art, rather than railroad engineering, it seems much better.

 

[FriskyFL]

That must have been one heck of a white knuckle ride. Insanely impractical. At least the NYC was trying to think "outside the box". I wonder what became of the data collected in the four test runs, and what did it reveal?

Sent from my SGH-T999 using Amtrak Forum mobile app

 

[jis]

Important data collected:

1. It did not take off!

2. It did not fall off the rails!

3. The track remained useable after each run!

4. The car remained in sufficiently good state to be converted back for use in regular service.

Did they actually instrument it to collect any other data? Dunno. Just wondering aloud.

 

[MikefromCrete]

It was more a publicity stunt than a real attempt at scientific research. It was designed to take attention away from NYC's relentless cutting of passenger trains.

 

[jis]

Nero fiddles while Rome burns?

 

[railiner]

Perhaps there was just a smidgen of a competitive spirit left in the NYC....at the same period, they were testing high speed DOT MU's and Turbo Train's on the PRR....they ran those at about 160 mph between New Brunswick and Trenton...

 

[George Harris]

The interesting aspect to me: apparently NYC was so broke that they couldn't imagine installing much continuous welded rail, so they were studying HSR over bolted rail. Nobody would dream of that now.

It is not as bad as you make it sound. Well maintained jointed rail does not restrain speed. At that time the practice of installing welded rail as a policy was less than 15 years old on any of the major US railroad companies. The primary advantage of welded rail is that elimination of joints reduces both track and equipment maintenance. Track by more than half.

Note that the vehicle was a basic Budd RDC car with a reinforced and streamlined front end. Speeds of over around 80 to 90 mph were not possible with the drive systems on these vehicles, but the suspension was good for higher speeds. Therefore, to see what happened at higher speeds the drive shafts had to be disconnected and another method of propulsion applied. Hence the jet engine, which was bought used. The intent was never to put jet engine powered trainsets into service, but to see if higher speeds were practical with the available vehicles and track. If so, then the determination of economic viability would be more thoroughly studied. At the very least, they may have been thinking about a City of New Orleans (pre Amtrak daytime train) type day train may have been under consideration, but such would not be practical between New York and Chicago with the then existing speed limits. Remember, the New York Central route has quite a number of sizable intermediate cities, far greater in population than the intermediate points on the CNO route. Even as late as 1966, the CNO ran 10 to 12 coaches on normal days and upwards of 20 cars on peak travel days. I would suspect that NYC saw the possibility of running a couple of quite profitable daytime coach streamliners if they could get the schedules right.

It was not entirely a publicity stunt any more than the French 500+ km/hr runs by one of the early TGV trains. There was a good deal of instrumentation. This is not my imagination. In a former job we had one of the (by then retired) New York Central men that was involved with this run on our project as an advisor.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

At the end of the day it was a phenomenal failure and nothing came of it. The money went down the drain without producing any viable technology. It is really pretty useless to put together a random collection of things to achieve a point of data and the be completely unable to do anything with it. It would appear that they literally had no second step planned after this first step. Sad....

Sounds just like Chrysler and the Turbine Cars they tried to Develop and Market in the 50s and 60s! Of course they went Bankrupt, sold out to Mercedes, and now belong to one of those Generic Unknown Investment Cartels even though their commercials Feature "Imported from Detroit" and Star Bob Dylan!

Fiat Chrysler Automobiles is not a Generic Cartel, or an investment cartel, or anything else of the sort. It was a bail out of a moribund Chrysler Corporation from mismanagement by a Generic Uknown Investment Cartel (Cerebus Capital) by Fiat, an Italian automaker with a long history of car building, including being responsible for some of the most copiously produced car designs in history (the Fiat 124/Fiat 125/Fiat 125p/FSO Polonez/Lada 2101/Lada 2102/Lada 2103/Lada 2104/Lada 2105/Lada 2106/Lada 2107, and variations of those probably had more cars built in their various forms than Volkswagen built Beetles) who, in addition to Chrsyler corporation holdings, owns storied automotive brands Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Maserati, and Lancia.

And also by the by, with the exception of Ferraris, Maseratis, and the Fiat 500L, all cars sold by Fiat Chrysler Automobiles in this country are built in North America, and many of them in the USA. And with the exception of its final heritage design, the minivans, all of them are class competitive, if not class leading. I wouldn't be too critical of the outcome of that particular change in Chryslers long, hard, turbulent, and quite bankrupt flirting history.