With the passing of Alan Cripe in the mid 1990’s, perhaps your questions on the Fastracker DMT are unknowable.
Talgo has gotten the contract for the Madison-Milwaukee-Chicago train. During the 1990’s, when the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative was being planned, there were a variety of train builders who were “pitching” their concepts and their wares, and I am told Talgo made more than one presentation at meetings of the Midwest High Speed Rail Association, which was the umbrella organization for advocacy groups supporting the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative.
A long-time ProRail member told me of “some guys showing a video of a train slicing a truck in half.” That would have had to be people associated with Alan Cripe. Jason Shron’s book “Turbo Train: A Journey” documents that a Canadian Turbo, doing an early “demonstration run” with press members on board, had a collision with a meat truck at a grade crossing that was caught on camera.
The reason this collision video would be part of a sales pitch is that the safety of ultra-lightweight railroad equipment is also in question, but in this collision, the “prow” of the Turbo split the truck in half, protecting the train from derailment and from any more serious damage than having to replace some fiberglass streamline shell.
Anyway, this video made an impression on someone in ProRail, but the fellow doesn’t remember additional details of who was making this “pitch” and which train they were selling. On the other hand, the Midwest High Speed Rail Association has long had a page on their Web site saying how great they thought the Turbo Train was, or at least from the standpoint of a lighweight, streamlined train with a large passenger capacity.
I had also seen snippets and blurbs about people having “the rights” to make another TurboTrain, one attributing this to Rader Railcar, later Colorado Railcar.
Which sounds very much like the DMT that appeared in the April 1959 issue of Trains (which is available as a Trains Express pdf - trpdf024.pdf). That design included modular engines on each side of the aisle underneath the control dome and later formed the basis for the UA Turbotrains. One of the design goals was to reduce tare weight per passenger.
Erik - Thanks for the reference to the old Trains reprint. What they describe there is similar to the Patent Office application I’ve seen. I was just wondering if diesels would have allowed enough room to add the dome passenger seating, as done on the production UAC Turbos.
Don - Not only Fastracker, but “Trailblazer Technologies”, Cripe’s consultancy, has also abandoned its trademark.
Paul - Thank you so much for your (as ever) thoughtful and informative response. Two comments:
(1) where on the Midwest HSR Assn website do you find their Turbo Train laudations – I’ve checked all over and can’t find it;
(2) while I would have to agree that the chapter on Fastracker is long closed, wouldn’t a low-slung Fastracker Power-Dome-style unit at each end of one of those new Talgo consists look a lot better (and perhaps be more efficient) than one of those huge Amtrak locomotives on point?
I have looked over the Midwest HSR Assn site, and it looks completely revised with the TurboTrain essay gone. It seems they have changed their focus, from 110 MPH Diesel trains to electric-powered HSR. They give a transcript of Rick Harnish, as much as admitting that the fuel usage of 110 MPH Diesels won’t make that big an impact on oil demand and that the need is to go with electric “bullet trains.”
It looks like they are taking the 110 MPH trains as a done deal and looking ahead to “true HSR” on the basis that there is some political interest in a Chicago-St Louis line.
As to the power on the Talgo, if you put a conventional Diesel at each end or perhaps one Diesel and an F40 “Cabbage Car” on the consist, you negate the weight advantage of the Talgo, and with the mismatch in height, you introduce aerodynamic drag.
On the other hand, it looks “FRA-wise” that putting passengers in a leading car (or even a trailing car) is something Amtrak wants to avoid. I have this impression because the Cascades Talgo has an FRA waiver for its lightweight construction that as much as specifies the Cascades consist – of having a 120-130 ton “battering ram” at each end and also keeping passengers out of the Talgo “service cars” at each end of the articulated Talgo train set.
On the other hand, the new Talgos are claimed by the manufacturer on their Web site to be fully “FRA compliant” – pretty much the same light weight and 17-ton axle loa
I thought that also but the web site below states the new cab cars will have rear facing seats when operating as a cab car except for the table seats. Note if this does apply to the present 130 car order no mention is in the web site.