Ah dammit you were here first with that XD But glad to see I am not the only sassy/funny sarcastic one here XD And boy yours is good, I already forgot mine
I love how most of these videos are like "This vehicle used a very unique aerodynamic phenomenon to fly" but this one is just "they strapped a jet to it"
Even better is that blister on the roof of the Budd cars (or most railmotors/railcars/DMU's) is just the radiators for the engines, so you'd just have the hot jet exhaust cooking down through the roof with no climate control at all
Plus, the B-58 used J79 engines, NOT J47's. The B-58 was NOT surplus until 1970, 4 years after this timeframe. And yes, that is a B-36 paired engine pod with drag louvers. My question is, how the heck did the thing back up, reverse?
Two J47 turbojet engines were mounted outboard of the three Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major piston engines on each wing of the B-36 - that's where they came from
Japan: Let´s build a highly aerodynamic high speed train that changes rail travel. France: Let´s build something that could compedte with airplanes similar to what japan built and embarres the brithish. Britain: We´re too broke to build a highspeed railline so let´s build a crappy train that leans into curvs but the leaning mechanism will make the passengers sick and break, then we will sell the patent to italy, see them improove it, get jeluos and buy it back. Sounds good, doesn´t it. Germany: Let´s build a huge diesel train that consumes ungodly ammounts of electricity while not being in service(TEE Trans Europa Express). East Germany: What´s luxury and highspeed?????? Merica: Yall think a bit: railcar + jet engine = FREEDOOOOOOOM!
Australia: an average speed of 80kmh will be plenty for our trains, after all we are a very very small country with no massive expanses of desert or anything...
In Belgium, as in France, we have very very fast trains. It's to compensate the DAYS long strikes every year. Usually at the precise moment people try/hope to go on holiday. So, on average, we should take strikes into account. And Japan would win again !!!!
The J-47's were installed in their original pods from a surplus B-36 bomber. The B-58 had four J-79 after burning turbojets that were much more powerful than the J-47 even without the afterburner.
I am pretty sure that the engines are not from a B-58 but from a B-36. The mounting looks exactly the same as those found on the B-36D onwards. Also, in one picture of your video, one sees that the jets have can-type combustors, which the B-58's J-79s did not have (they had more advanced annular combustors instead), but the B-36's J-47s did have. Finally, in one picture showing the salvaged engines before mounting, one can still see the intake shutter panels that allowed the B-36 to turn off its Jet engines in cruise (for fuel economy) and rely only on its 6 radials instead. Nice video as always.
That ‘record’ in 1893 was never authenticated which if they wanted to they could have with a Dynamometer car. They based this record on using a stopwatch and the distance between miles posts and not with actual measuring equipment.
It was a great era for trying new and crazy things so much optimism , One of the biggest downsides would have been the noise, diesel trains are pretty loud as they are with two jet engines on them it would have been deafening. Be like having a low flying jet go past each time. Still shame it was not rebuilt and ran again or at least in a museum.
Actually, it never ever stood a chance of being put to practical use, but even knowing that, man, I would have killed for the chance to work on such a project! Fun, or what? Whatever the positives or negatives of the engineering, the jet wash would have destroyed anything sitting trackside. Loved your animations, but look at the telephone lines running alongside and imagine how many split seconds they would survive as it passed.
The Black Beetle wasn't a prototype, it was an experimental engine. New York Central was never going to put jet propelled trains into revenue earning service, this was only ever an experiment to test the viability of high speed rail before making any commitment to the development of a conventionally propelled high speed rail vehicle. And the jet engines were from a B-36 not a B-58. Also Penn Central didn't abandon high speed rail, they just went with the Budd Metroliner which was already in production. And had already started being delivered to the Pennsylvania Railroad before the merger.
We did (sort of) get jet powered trains, with the turbine powered UAC TurboTrain and Bombardier LRC both being relatively successful, especially on the Quebec-Windsor corridor.
Based on all the corrections in the comments, you should take the video down and correct it to remove all references to the B-58, including all of the footage that you reused from the B-58 video. I'm curious how that got through research since it's such an easy fact to check.
Another thing not mentioned in this video, those jet engines are loud! Can you imagine it pulling away from a train station just how deafening that would be due to the proximity of you on the platform to the jet engines on the train. It would give some people perminant hearing damage.
Planes need too much space, are unconveniant and just a pollution hazard, America should be ashamed, Europe has a whole network of high-speed trains, that are cheap and get you anywhere, America ? Mostly cargo trains, lmao
@talpatv512 rails use land too, planes only need a runway while trains need rails from point a to b, so trains actually use way more land than planes.
There's another train in this same vein that's right up your alley - the Soviets actually made a full jet-powered 7-unit trainset in the 1970's that was basically this, but bigger! It was called the SVL.
Yes, L standing for laboratory. They were testing performance of train cars that are not powered by internal means. A lot of that research data was later used for trains that would potentially reach 250kph under locomotive power. But in reality they ended up with distributed power just like everyone else.
The way it sounded like to also include into this there was also the part that other trains on the tracks would also get in the way for this to be fast and would need its own tracks. While also they didn't test it out on everything that comes down to it of what challenge trains with curves, bumps, and weight for if the jet train would be also having added carts onto it that it would reduce the speed.
@@yeoldeseawitch and? Are you saying that I’m stupid for liking them or since they are stupid and they shouldn’t be covered? They’re still an important part of history, and frankly, aren’t that bad. The S1 was the only one that was truly stupid due to size. The others were fairly good at hauling ass down to NYC with three broadway limited. Not to mention they are potentially faster than mallard.
It would be interesting to revisit the concept with modern turbofan engines for better fuel economy and, with suitable mixing nozzles, would have a much reduced exhaust temperature. If you really want the minimal exhaust tempeeature possible, use the components of a modern turbofan arranged according to the aechitecture of the Garrett ATF-3 engine which was used for its minimal thermal signature in Noerhrop's Tacit Blue "stealth" demonstrator. Oh, the turboprop (well, turboshaft reall) locomotive was tried by 16:55 United Aircraft with the Turbotrain; it was not successful.
Jet engines were designed to work efficiently at high altitudes, this unit was on the ground. The main braking force on a jet aircraft is it's ability to reverse thrust after landing. they couldn't do it in this application. They were right about the signals needing to be upgraded as a train going nearly 200 MPH would require more stop time (even using cab signals). You can't begin to imagine the devastation that would occur should a collision happen at a railroad crossing. Another fact is this train would need nearly perfect tracks to operate on. If they thought the cost of jet fuel was high in the 60's, they could never afford to operate it now a days, at current fuel costs.
Aerotrain was an attractive concept but the passenger cars were based on GM buses and just couldn't take the pounding of railroad operations. I would love to see that engine mated with suitable passenger cars built by Budd.
Fine way to travel if you didn't care about a loss of hearing. How loud do you reckon it got inside that thing? Anyone been in a rear engine airliner, and sat at the back would know where I'm coming from.
Love your stories. One technical issue. The flickering film effect you use on the edges of the archival images, while a good visual cue about what we're watching, is irritating and distracting if you're watching on a big screen.... at least to me.
I can't help thinking that this must also have been HORRIBLY noisy. Nobody wants to live next to an airport, and there you only get noise from aircraft at take off and landing: most of the time they are thousands of feet up and the noise is barely detectable. This is a "jet" which would spend all its time on the ground.
It would never work, the noise of those turbines would be impossible to silence, and no city would allow that thing near it. If Jet-engines on trains were a good at all, other countries or even the US would eventually tried more. Obviously, fuel cost were probably major, specially now that most trains are electrical.
One thing to remember when talking about NA steam speed records is none were measured by a dyno car so numbers were not fully accurate though it is speculated that the PRR had trains that did 130+ which would put them well above mallard's record On that note though the 1893 record was not an official record. Even NYC's own engineers doubted 999 would be able to achieve that speed and NYC and the PRR were in a pissing contest for who had the fastest trains at the time so it is highly contested weather or not it's true because the fastest trains at the time only did mid to high 80's
You dont have to change signal systems. In germany you can drive 160kph with the Standart train security system (Indusi/PZB). Faster trains like IC/ICE use a train security system called LZB. All informations are shown on display in the cab. This system is is quit old from the 60/70s
I imagine someone also realized that the airlines they were competing with could put jet engines on their vehicles too, go even faster, and not have to deal with constant track maintenance or inflexible routes.
within less than 3 secs of hearing the reasons for this not happening i can think of a few ways around said problems one the engines used be smaller jet engines it may need more to get the same speeds but it would get over the issue with fitting in tunnels as for the jet wash causing issues a simple way around that is while in large built up areas it would have normal engines that were not jet engines to allow for it to not cause issues in built up areas these same engines could be used to allow it to both turn and reverse these few simple things done in the right way fix all their issues and make it possible to do
Apparently they are according to the sources. However they were not the primary engines from the production model b-58, so likely they are the small ones like the j47
You forgot to mention that another big reason why the black beetle never worked, is because with how much thrust and speed the train had, it Actualy kicked up track ballast. which not only would require the track to be re-ballasted, but also would hit bystanders at stations and crossings, and also passing trains, which could result in bad consequences
imagine this with todays technology,and every time the train goes into a tunnel the jet engines hide like a landing gear while a diesel engine keeps runing the train in the tunnel,and when comes out,jet engines come out again,......greetings from Lima Peru......
How much research and common sense do you have? Do you not think the J47 turbines on the M-497 look much much smaller than the J79 turbines on the B-58? Oh! That would be because they’re different turbines completely. J47s were used on B-36 Peacemakers amongst others.
