Prototype for everything corner.

[russ p]

2 hours ago, Porcy Mane said:

 

Budd clone. Great idea till it peppered everyone in a station with high speed flying ballast.

 

 

 

 

Glad to see the jets still have the smoke of the  B47 which they were originally fitted to.

Does that still exist?  Basically the same as fitting the engine nacelles of a Vickers vallient to the roof of a derby lightweight and see what happens! 

[melmerby]

3 hours ago, Porcy Mane said:

 

Budd clone. Great idea till it peppered everyone in a station with high speed flying ballast.

 

 

The stuck-on Darth Vader front looks stupid

[PatB]

3 hours ago, melmerby said:

The stuck-on Darth Vader front looks stupid

More stupid than the whole idea in the first place? 

 

I know jet engines were all new and exciting at one time, but they do have some limitations that make them unsuitable for lowish speed applications which anyone messing about with them really ought to have been aware of, even in the early days of the technology. 

[pH]

10 minutes ago, PatB said:

More stupid than the whole idea in the first place? 

 

How do you feel about this then ?

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/scottishmaritimemuseum/4834159902

 

To be fair, it was never meant as a means of transport, just as an experimental platform.

[PatB]

1 hour ago, pH said:

 

How do you feel about this then ?

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/scottishmaritimemuseum/4834159902

 

To be fair, it was never meant as a means of transport, just as an experimental platform.

 

I suppose that, for the particularly specialist application, the horrible inefficiency of jets at low airspeed was considered a worthwhile tradeoff for largely eliminating water disturbance. I confess I can't, off the top of my head, think of a better way of doing the same job apart from, maybe, turboprop power units, which tend to be the "proper" way of using gas turbines at low speeds. But I can see doing so on the scale necessary here bringing its own share of problems. Probably cheaper to just keep feeding the thing Jet-A.

Edited October 16, 2019 by PatB

[DavidB-AU]

9 hours ago, Porcy Mane said:

 

Budd clone. Great idea till it peppered everyone in a station with high speed flying ballast.

 

 

Not a clone, it was a modified RDC.

 

9 hours ago, Porkscratching said:

You can get an 0 gauge model of the Yank version, with jet engine sound apparently...

 

 

There was also a Kato version in N with "working" afterburners (yellow-orange LEDs) in the jet engines and pretty impressive DCC sound.

 

1 hour ago, PatB said:

 

I suppose that, for the particularly specialist application, the horrible inefficiency of jets at low airspeed was considered a worthwhile tradeoff for largely eliminating water disturbance. I confess I can't, off the top of my head, think of a better way of doing the same job apart from, maybe, turboprop power units, which tend to be the "proper" way of using gas turbines at low speeds. But I can see doing so on the scale necessary here bringing its own share of problems. Probably cheaper to just keep feeding the thing Jet-A.

 

The Bombardier JetTrain got around this by simply not using the turbine at low speed. Instead at low speed they used the diesel alternator set which normally provided head end power for the coaches.

 

Cheers

David

 

[big jim]

7 hours ago, melmerby said:

The stuck-on Darth Vader front looks stupid

 
i would say more ‘papa lazarou’ than darth Vader 

[PatB]

1 hour ago, DavidB-AU said:

 

 

The Bombardier JetTrain got around this by simply not using the turbine at low speed. Instead at low speed they used the diesel alternator set which normally provided head end power for the coaches.

 

Cheers

David

 

Yeah, but the use of "Jet" in the title is a bit misleading, in that it used a gas turbine, which works on the same principle (indeed, in some cases, is the same engine) but drives mechanically from the shaft rather than chucking the combustion products out of the back at high speed to take advantage of Newton's 3rd Law. The first way could be sorta useable (although gas turbines have been conspicuously unsuccessful in general land based transport, so maybe not), whilst the second, as embodied in those railcars above, really isn't.

[leopardml2341]

8 hours ago, melmerby said:

The stuck-on Darth Vader front looks stupid

Hey look, I've found another one

 

[Fat Controller]

1 hour ago, PatB said:

Yeah, but the use of "Jet" in the title is a bit misleading, in that it used a gas turbine, which works on the same principle (indeed, in some cases, is the same engine) but drives mechanically from the shaft rather than chucking the combustion products out of the back at high speed to take advantage of Newton's 3rd Law. The first way could be sorta useable (although gas turbines have been conspicuously unsuccessful in general land based transport, so maybe not), whilst the second, as embodied in those railcars above, really isn't.

The French used gas-turbine powered multiple-units for many years; they had two types, one with a single turbine, and a diesel engine, the other with one large and one small turbine.  At various times they worked Paris-Boulogne Hoverport, Paris- Cherbourg, Lyon- Geneva and Lyon- Nantes. This latter used to travel up 'my' valley in the Beajuolaise, making a lot of noise...

[russ p]

6 hours ago, PatB said:

More stupid than the whole idea in the first place? 

 

I know jet engines were all new and exciting at one time, but they do have some limitations that make them unsuitable for lowish speed applications which anyone messing about with them really ought to have been aware of, even in the early days of the technology. 

 

 

To be honest jet engines weren't that new at the time of this test, I believe this was 1967 and the engines used were secondhand from a B47 US airforce six engined jet bomber,  it was the biggest class of jet bomber of any western airforce with over 2000 examples built but by 1967 they had virtually all been withdrawn just a few electronics and weather monitoring aircraft in service 

[iands]

13 hours ago, Porcy Mane said:

....... Great idea till it peppered everyone in a station with high speed flying ballast.

 

Reminds me of when BR(S) (I think it was) strapped a couple of meteor jet engines to a wagon as an experiment for snow clearing. It cleared the snow very well apparently. However the experiment was soon ditched as the jet engines were too efficient in also clearing the ballast from the track formation! 

 

[PatB]

So who here ever taped a Jetex motor to a Dublo or Triang wagon to see what happened? Come on, don't be shy. The only reason I never did it was that Jetex seemed to have gone out of production some time before I became aware of them, so the opportunity never really arose.

[keefer]

42 minutes ago, Fat Controller said:

The French used gas-turbine powered multiple-units for many years; they had two types, one with a single turbine, and a diesel engine, the other with one large and one small turbine.  At various times they worked Paris-Boulogne Hoverport, Paris- Cherbourg, Lyon- Geneva and Lyon- Nantes. This latter used to travel up 'my' valley in the Beajuolaise, making a lot of noise...

The French turbo trains were also used by Amtrak in the US and also lasted into VIA days in Canada.

Not had a chance to check but I think there were the RTG type and the others with the bulbous front end and single-axle articulation.

[Joseph_Pestell]

1 minute ago, PatB said:

So who here ever taped a Jetex motor to a Dublo or Triang wagon to see what happened? Come on, don't be shy. The only reason I never did it was that Jetex seemed to have gone out of production some time before I became aware of them, so the opportunity never really arose.

 

I was never much into Jetex but a lot of schoolmates were.

 

It was quite difficult to build a vehicle that was light enough but also had sufficient stability.

 

I am assuming that you would intend to put your Triang or Dublo wagon on a length of straight track. I think that the Jetex would struggle to get the metal Dublo wagon away at all. The Triang of the era would be light enough but probably unstable if a short wheelbase. They also had bearings that barely let the wheels turn at all. Favourite might be the Triang horsebox or at least the chassis.

[Fat Controller]

1 minute ago, keefer said:

The French turbo trains were also used by Amtrak in the US and also lasted into VIA days in Canada.

Not had a chance to check but I think there were the RTG type and the others with the bulbous front end and single-axle articulation.

RTG 1 and 2, IIRC. The small engine was the same used on the Alouette, the large one to that on the Super-Frelon. The front end was bulbous, with a very 1950s air to it. Not heard of single-axle articulation on the french units; that's something I'd associate with Talgo-derived stock.

I travelled on the 'Turbotrains' a couple of times; they had very comfortable leather seats, IIRC.

[pH]

10 minutes ago, PatB said:

So who here ever taped a Jetex motor to a Dublo or Triang wagon to see what happened? 

 

The model version of the "JATO bottle car" urban myth?

[Fat Controller]

There was a British 'jet train'; not one of the gas-turbine trains, but a Gloster Meteor engine on a wagon, trialled in the 1950s for snow-clearance.

[keefer]

1 hour ago, Fat Controller said:

RTG 1 and 2, IIRC. The small engine was the same used on the Alouette, the large one to that on the Super-Frelon. The front end was bulbous, with a very 1950s air to it. Not heard of single-axle articulation on the french units; that's something I'd associate with Talgo-derived stock.

I travelled on the 'Turbotrains' a couple of times; they had very comfortable leather seats, IIRC.

Had time to do a quick search. The articulated one was the UAC TurboTrain:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/UAC_TurboTrain

The RTG units in N.America were built in France, the subsequent RTL units were built in the US:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turboliner

 

Let's not forget of course the APT-E , or the earlier designs which showed a very sleek gas-turbine train. Always thirsty when not at full chat, the oil crisis in the early '70s effectively finished the idea off in the UK.

Edited October 16, 2019 by keefer

[Porcy Mane]

The driver/designer uses a powercab.

 

 

[The Johnster]

5 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

There was a British 'jet train'; not one of the gas-turbine trains, but a Gloster Meteor engine on a wagon, trialled in the 1950s for snow-clearance.

I have an idea this was actually used 'in anger' on the Heads of the Valleys route where a train had been abandoned in the severe winter of 1947; a Rolls Royce RB-50 engine was chained to a flat wagon which was then chained to the track, the exhaust aimed at the snowdrift, the blue touch paper ignited and everyone stood well back.

 

The engine performed faultlessly, but failed to make any impression on the snowdrift...  

 

Must've looked and sounded pretty spectacular, though!  Not quite a 'jet train' as the engine was never used to propel the wagon (one might have had to evacuate the town of Abergavenny if it had).

[pH]

1 hour ago, The Johnster said:

I have an idea this was actually used 'in anger' on the Heads of the Valleys route where a train had been abandoned in the severe winter of 1947 ...

 

Here you go:  

 

https://youtu.be/mJfoFMICMqQ

 

[The Johnster]

Diolch yn fawr!

[iands]

7 hours ago, iands said:

 

I should have added that there is a short film of this on one of the Behind the Scenes DVDs. 

[melmerby]

Seems to work OK in the Frozen North (of Canada!)

 

 

And in Russia:

 

They didn't even remove the cockpit for this one: