On Sat. 23rd July 1966,
New York Central Railroad engineer Don Wetzel and his colleagues test ran a high-speed, turbojet-propelled, experimental locomotive, which they had built.
To set the time in perspective, in India, Rajesh Khanna acted in his first film Aakhri Khat (1966), I was a IVth standard schoolboy at OLPS.
Don Wetzel was asst. director of technical research at the New York Central Railroad.
His department's mandate was to make trains run safer, faster and cheaper.
For a platform, they chose an existing 13-year-old Budd “Beeliner” diesel MU railcar.
It had an RDC-3, part coach, part baggage and mail configuration body. The railcar had been equipped with a streamlined front cowling.
Jet engines were the cheapest and most reliable 5,000 hp engines.
Don used GE J-47-19 axial-flow turbojet engines from a scrap 1950s USAF Convair B-36H “Peacemaker” bomber in the Davis-Monthan Air Force boneyard in Tucson, AZ.
Each engine could develop 5,200 lbf (23.2 kilo Newtons) of static thrust each.
They purchased both engines and the pod for $5,000. The aircraft boneyard shipped them by tractor-trailer from Arizona to NY Central's Cleveland Collinwood rail yard.
GE Aviation at Cincinnati, OH and NASA at Cleveland,OH helped the railway convert the engine to a 28V DC starter and ignition system. They chose to use ordinary diesel fuel. This is thicker than jet fuel. So the team increases the pressure to the fuel nozzles, to atomize and ignite the fuel in the combustion chambers. The throttle was cobbled from a Vickers hydraulic flow-control valve, instead of the aircraft's complicated throttle.
The engines were attached to the roof of the diesel MU car. The team removed the seats to make room for the pod structure supporting the turbojet engines. Instruments to measure speed and stress were installed in the baggage area. The fuel tanks were installed in the post-office section of the coach.
The railcar was called the M-497 “Black Beetle”.
For the test track, they chose existing tracks between
Butler, IN and
Air Line Junction, Toledo, OH.
The 109 km line was chosen for its dead-straight layout and good condition. It was not modified in any way.
Four test runs were performed, two per day, on Sat. 23rd July and Sunday 24th July 1966.
Speeding down the straight section, Don Wetzel's crew clocked 183.68 mph [ = 295 plus km/h ].
The Guinness World Records recognized that as the world record for self-propelled trains. As of 2013, the record was yet unbeaten in the USA.
Despite spectacular performance, relative cheap cost and use of existing parts, the jet train project was killed.
The parent New York Central railroad was dying and headed for merger with its competitor: Pennsylvania Railroad, who were committed to the Metroliner project.
The railway collected and trashed, valuable test data relating to the stresses of high-speed rail travel on conventional equipment and tracks then existing in USA.
The jet engines were removed, and the rail car returned to normal service for 18 more years, until it was scrapped in 1984.
The competing Budd Metroliner EMU 160 km/h express trains ran from 1969-2006, when they were replaced by Amtrak's 240 km/h Acela Expresses.