The TurboTrain - The Sikorsky Aircraft Promotional Film

Released originally by the Surface Transportation Systems of Sikorsky Aircraft Division of United Aircraft in 1968. Includes excellent footage of the TurboTrain demonstration runs.
From the original Sikorsky Aircraft promo material released with the film: "A sleek, new lightweight passenger train, the Turbo-Train, enters service in 1968 in the United States and Canada. The TurboTrain is lighter, faster, quieter, smoother and more reliable than conventional trains -and cheaper to run. The TurboTrain, conceived on aerodynamic principles, and powered by aircraft-type gas turbine engines, was designed by United Aircraft Corpo-ration. It is being developed and marketed by Surface Transportation Systems, Sikorsky Aircraft Division.
The TurboTrain is a modern, streamlined, high-speed intercity passenger train designed by aerospace engineers and based on the principles of flight.
Powered by aircraft-type gas turbine engines, it was designed to provide comfortable, high performance service on existing railroad trackage. The TurboTrain can travel at speeds up to 170 mph but initial top speeds in passenger-carrying service this year will be about 120 mph. "
This film is being posted for educational purposes only. To learn more about the CN UAC TurboTrain, visit the largest audio and video collection of Turbo links at High Speed Rail Canada - www.highspeedrailcanada.com

[@bernardmueller5676]

Funny that they blame the TurboTrain for failing and NOT the bad track condition as well as the many railroad crossings.

[@Highspeedrailcanada1]

Yes track quality definitely played a part in the Turbo's demise.

[@uncinarynin]

They should have preserved one in a museum.

[@Highspeedrailcanada1]

very sad indeed none were saved

[@Bammer2001]

They were all scrapped. 😭

[@richardjames3356]

The American attitude to history right there. Bin it

[@therandomytchannel4318]

Yes, I often wonder why turbine technology never really caught on in the railway industry. Steam or gas, that Baldwin turbine locomotive was massive 🎉

[@thatguycarmine1]

@@richardjames3356A very good principle.

[@lambertax]

France has also developed a similar train with two Turboméca helicopter engines. It was a very nice machine, but the oil crisis of the 1970s killed it quickly. These machines consumed more than airplanes!

[@rontroy3843]

I rode a Turboliner from GCT to Boston many years ago and back; smooth, quiet, great experience.

[@Highspeedrailcanada1]

nice to hear.

[@trainglen22]

Loved the early morning Turbo from Montreal to Toronto. Faster than the current Via trains these days.

[@Highspeedrailcanada1]

true!

[@fiatfan83]

LOVE that the Granatelli Turbine got a shout out in this.

[@XxBec3509]

Greetings from England. The turbo train looks great.

[@dancostello6465]

Only train I ever liked. Knew a lot about UAC back then. For years one of these was sitting in Moncton on a siding. Those were too cool for school. They had some teething problems. Tracks were too old to got fast on. Brakes needed tweaking. Etc.

[@Highspeedrailcanada1]

very cool for sure.

[@fritzfam5]

Hey I'm looking into the UAC, and I would like to know if you by any chance know what the horn of the UAC is. Or atleast describe what it was like?

[@jimdieseldawg3435]

How To Compete With Airlines. 1, add wheels to a fuselage. 2, use turbine power but not with direct thrust utilisation nor driving efficient multi-bladed variable-pitch propellers. 3, use complex and unproven gearboxes to funnel shaft-drive directly to some of the wheels, completely ignoring the facts that (a) driving a generator or alternator to provide current to traction motors had already long been proven to be more efficient; (b) that decades of locomotive experience had clearly proven the superior reliability of power-electric drive over power-mechanical (and power-hydraulic) drive; and (c) that UP had unequivocally demonstrated that even turbine-electric propulsion was excessively fuel-hungry compared to diesel-electrics of similar power to the rail and less than optimal in the reliability stakes. 4, run the passenger services at about a third of the speed of a period airliner due to the inconvenient presence of track curvature and altitude variations between and over annoyingly hard and unyielding geographical and man-made features. What could possibly go wrong?

[@blainedunlap4242]

But they throughly tested the concept for all contingencies.

[@troykirchhoefel9134]

CN definitely pitched this train like a Boeing 747 on wheels with overpriced Concorde business class ticket prices. Hardly nobody could afford using this thing as a regular highspeed commuter train like you see in Europe and Asia today.

[@michaelbonet3783]

The TurboTrain sounded so cool and groovy. Tee hee hee. :)

[@BudTheDrummer]

I saw the first Turbo Trains to hit the New Haven in the mid to late '60's. They looked and sounded spectacular, especially when they spooled up after stopping for a red signal.But they proved troublesome and were sold off quickly.

[@Highspeedrailcanada1]

thanks for sharing the memory

[@gargoyle7863]

Sikorsky's Great Gearbox Horror Show.

[@stickynorth]

Still breaks my heart that this was well before I was born and yet runs faster than todays services which here in Alberta are close to 0...

[@Highspeedrailcanada1]

so true.

[@vincentb893]

There was a lot of really cool equipment a hundred years ago, like electric cars, commuter trolleys on every other street,100 mph trains,but for some reason they just disappeared

[@johneddy908]

Sikorsky Aircraft is today part of Lockheed Martin.

[@Highspeedrailcanada1]

thanks for that info.

[@johnblair8146]

@@Highspeedrailcanada1 United Aircraft changed its name to United Technologies Corporation in1975. It merged with Raytheon a few years ago and is now known as Raytheon Technologies.

[@desertmodern7638]

I was completely unaware of these. Gearboxes tend to be relatively high maintenance, so perhaps that was an issue. Diesel-electric and electric trains use of electric motors for power at the wheels would seem simpler and lower maintenance.

[@timtim8468]

Using right angle gear boxes, we can add as much engines as we please. We don't worry about fuel economy, noise, we're just zipping from downtown of one city, to another, in comfort!

[@samtrak1204]

There was so much hope and dreams that never materialized.

[@Highspeedrailcanada1]

so true.

[@F7Aengineer]

This is amazing

[@Highspeedrailcanada1]

It truly was.

[@CSX_Doolittle]

Hmm that horn in the first clip reminds me of a certain manufacturer

[@ManiacRacing]

The horn section in this soundtrack gave all my houseplants Autism, even the plastic one.

[@garryferrington811]

A phone call to Japan would have been easier.

[@BHARGAV_GAJJAR]

Doesn't hurt to put an aerodynamic low drag nose on every high speed train although I wouldn't apply direct mechanical power via 90 degree gear boxes that's gonna be bad. I would use turboprops to drive generators and put motors on each of the carriages

[@Misophist]

That is actually how the ICE 3 works, every second carriage has one motorized bogey. This way, top speed doesn't depend on the length of the train, and both train ends can be used for seating right up to the engineer's cockpit.

[@demonmucker4734]

Canada was great in the 70's

[@PaulLangan]

Well said

[@hanksenkow7313]

AND IS GREAT TODAY. POLILIER WOULD LOVE TO ROLL BACK PROGRESS & BECOME A WANNABE MINI-TRUMPER FASCIST DICTATOR.

[@alexandermathar7780]

And they chose the PT6 with the least power rating! Imagine how fast it could have been with the 1300 HP PT6A-67! I think it could have hit 200 MPH !

[@Highspeedrailcanada1]

track could not handle even the lower speeds unfortunately.

[@ontariocbclub]

Too bad it doesn't exist today

[@AndrewVanDay]

So what was its downfall? I would presume the lack of dedicated high speed track. If you could run a train at 170 on regular track then the UK wouldn't need to build HS1 & 2. Fuel cost must have been eye watering too.

[@kiefershanks4172]

They just wanted to stick gas turbine in everything back then. The blind optimism clearly clouded their judgement. They forgot the whole reason rail is competitive: its energy efficiency. Gas turbines aren't exactly fuel sipping.

[@christopherlucy1772]

NH..loved the light weight tilt a train idea..it had some success in Europe but never got off the groud here..service was a sore point on The..PC$$⚠️

[@dmrr7739]

The soundtrack is hilarious! “The Turbotrain… in color!”

[@garryferrington811]

Color was high-end then. Eastman Color Original (ECO) 16mm was only introduced in 1958.

[@billwendell6886]

A few years ago there was one in Schoharie NY. There were a pile of them in Providence Ri for years. They were POS. Constantly breaking.

[@johnblair8146]

Not the same trains. The ones you are thinking of were built By Rohr Aircraft using a French design.

[@billwendell6886]

Thanks, I always had thought they were Bombardier.@@johnblair8146

[@prakashd7397]

like concord this also a thing of past

[@Highspeedrailcanada1]

sadly yes

[@Perich29]

its a Concord on track.

[@tronn_carter]

Looks like a Florida Brightline train concept

[@linesided]

Thanks auto lobbyists for crushing high speed rail in North America.

[@voidjavelin23]

And thanks naive and easily mind controlled people for pushing auto lobbyist, you should need to go to school

[@GBOAC]

You are posting this under a vid by a helicopter engine lobbyist

[@garryferrington811]

Don't leave Big Oil out of this.

[@weareallbeingwatched4602]

Gas turbines are usable on trains but probably not cars - the hot exhaust is terrifyingly hotter than bothered. The only way to use a turbine properly is to derive the heat as a useful commodity - turbine trains would be ideal for a mobile factory which can process resources during transport - a bakery and processing/packing line would be perfectly appropriate. So would a hotel or hospital. Stalin had his personal militarised power train. Train cars were the private jets of the 19th century in the USA.

[@richardkudrna7503]

One issue they had was lack of torque from a start. So why couldn’t the electric motor be used there?

[@billwendell6886]

They needed to keep the weight down. But a 2 speed transmission would have made sense. I wish there was more on the drivetrain tech out there.

[@handymatt1970]

Sexy Turbo in silver w/blue 8:14

[@fritzfam5]

Anyone know what horn this is 0:02

[@mosquito7459]

C'est vrai qu'on retrouve la silhouette du H 19 vu le nez de la motrice

[@christopherlucy1772]

Living in Boston then having visited montreal..1972/1973 using via 2 toronto i never saw or rode It or rode Acela later & indy we went in 69!

[@peterhogan9537]

why did they pull these trains out of service after only 12 years ?

[@dancostello6465]

They were experimental and everything that could go wrong did. Then the engineering was far ahead and the market didn't have a profit earning position for a turbine train. They would have flown off tracks with full speed.

[@Highspeedrailcanada1]

never were winter tested,and track quality they ran on was not great

[@WA1LBK]

Reliability issues were the main culprit. I rode the Turbo only once, on the former New Haven railroad mainline, between Providence RI and New York City. From a railfan’s point of view, it was great sitting in the front seat of the power dome car & literally looking over the engineer’s shoulder! - I remember us passing the northbound Tropicana orange juice train with 3 bid 6-axle GE locomotives & about 100 cars (it’s much shorter these days). If you were in one of the coaches rather than the power dome car, the ride on the old New Haven’s jointed rail left a LOT to be desired, as the single- axle coaches wheelbase was about the same as a length of jointed rail, resulting in a loud “CLUNK - CLUNK, CLUNK- CLUNK”, noisy bumpy ride. This was in the Penn Central era, when the former New Haven mainline was in rough shape, in contrast to today’s smooth all - welded rail Northeast Corridor mainline. The ride in the Turbo’s coaches was basically similar to the failed experimental high - speed trains that Pat McGinnis foisted on the New Haven during his disastrous presidency in the 1950’s; trying to do high-speed rail “on-the-cheap” with Talgo - style trains while deterring proper track maintenance. In contrast, Talgo’s can deliver a smooth ride on PROPERLY MAINTAINED welded rail; Amtrak’s Talgo’s running in their Northwestern “Cascade” service are quite popular.

[@jamesstuart3346]

I remember seeing the Turbo in ugly VIA yellow rotting in the Toronto yard...sad ending 😢

[@Solar55]

@@WA1LBK Yeah I was 11 years old and obsessed with everything Turbo. My parents finally booked a trip as a surprise and to my dismay the Turbo arrived an hour late, being pulled by a regular diesel engine. No a/c in the coaches and it was a hot, slow, disappointing trip. :(

[@j.sterling9167]

If they can't keep the tracks & roadbeds up to class 1 railroad standards then how can the tracks carry a train capable of 170 MPH when they can't even handle normal freight trains at 60 mph.

[@billwendell6886]

LOL most of the time Acela runs 125 because they never got the right of ways straight enough, some places it hits 175. Built for constant 200. But it is something to be standing on the platform when does 125 thru the station. Every now and then some TikToker would get sucked into the side trying to get a vid be the vacuum. eeewwww. There is an "Acela" line 5 feet back in Attleboro, at least the last time I took the T.

[@LeftIsBest001]

Lol, sounds like a DC-9 flew passed you at head height watching it go by..