What's really the trouble with the Turbo train?

by: Timothy Hackworth

Timothy Hackworth is the pseudonym of a Montreal authority on rail transport.

from: The Montreal Star, 

January 7, 1969

Collection of LC Gagnon.

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End of the January 1969 article.
To illustrate some of the author's points, a few images appear below.

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Locomotive Prototypes

Further postings will look at the Turbo's own equipment in more detail.

 Unlike the locomotives below,
the Turbo's turbine engines were geared directly to the driving wheels.

Trains; July 1949; Kalmbach

GE 101 (above) was a gas turbine-electric.
A diagram of its power plant is shown below.

Trains; July 1949; Kalmbach

Trains; October 1949; Kalmbach

The UP 50 is the experimental GE 101
after it was renumbered and repainted for Union Pacific.

UP ordered larger turbine locomotives for freight service
to take advantage of cheap bunker fuel.

Trains; May 1949; Kalmbach.

Chesapeake and Ohio coal-fired steam turbine-electric - built by Baldwin.
In service 1947 to 1950 (scrapped)

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Passenger Trainset Prototypes

Modern Railways; Cecil J Allen; 1959; Faber and Faber.

The GM EMD Aerotrain and the rubber bellows (right) employed as part of its suspension system.

Trains; June 1949; Kalmbach.

Chesapeake and Ohio experimental Train X cars at the Chicago Railroad Fair, 1948.
This was the technological basis for the Turbo's wheel and articulation system.

Trains; June 1949; Kalmbach.

American Car and Foundry experimental Talgo train.
(Talgo II, to be precise)

Trains remarked on the similarity to the Train X system, above.