Anyone ever seen seen this before? It was a new one on me.
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/archivethumbs.aspx?id=18050
The Xplorer was a Train X design, and indirectly Robert R. Young’s contribution to the lightweight train craze of the mid-1950’s, which also included early versions of Talgo, the Aerotrain, Budd’s Tubular design (the Keystone), and maybe some others. All of them were commercial flops.
Most of them were attempts to compete with cars and airlines…
Does anyone have any information on the history of this train? What is doing sitting in the weeds in South Carolina? Is it property of an Individual or a Railroad? Has it been used at all down there? It has to been out of a revenue service ( New Haven) for thirty plus years. [4:-)] Did Jim Bakker buy this to use at his defunct Amusement Park?[(-D][(-D]
Can anybody fill in the blanks? Thanks!
There are some pictures here from http://ohiorr.railfan.net/nyc.html -
Some wonderful photographs of the New York Central Xplorer train sent in to me by George Campbell, taken by his father back in 1956 in and around Columbus:
6 photographs of the New York Central Xplorer passenger train.
The four photos from June, 1956 were taken at Columbus Union Station during
a public demonstration of the (brand new) train. The two photos from August,
1956 were taken after the train was in service. One shows it passing by
Worthington, OH, the other shows an airline stewardess like attendant (they
did that on purpose!) at Columbus Union Station. Note how the car is dented
up after only two months in service! The photographer for all six was Alex Campbell.
The Xplorer was an attempt by the NYC to modernize rail travel and lure
people out of their cars. Needless to say, Columbus Union Station was
replaced by the Columbus Convention Center, highway 670 runs where the yard
used to be, and the Xplorers are long gone—George Campbell
JUNE 1956:
AUGUST 1956:
SEPTEMBER 1956:
Xplorer train passing directly behind the Ohio Railway Museum, Columbus
The NYC version of the RP210 suffered from a number of maladies, including being a one of a kind with an engine that needed metric tools in an era when standard tools were the norm. This units bugs as well as its New Haven sisters could have been fixed, but the trains they pulled were not successful at all. See them running in Clear Block Production’s Reflections of Pennsylvania vol. I. Why the PRR video? Well, they ran across a PRR line in Columbus when a camera toting fan happened to be on hand. See also “New York Central System Diesel Locomotives” by mutiple authors, either the original NYCH&T or TLC versions. The authors do not paint a rosy picture of their brief operating history on NYC. They get a going over in “Central’s Later Power” by Alvin F. Staufer and Edward L. May. Then too, there’s “Memories of New York Central Diesels” by Paul Carleton. Same conclusions with regard to the X-Plorer(Which is how it’s spelled on the 20!)
Meanwhile on New Haven, The Dan’l Webster won lots of enemies and few, if any, friends there. Their more complicated equipment, like the dual mode equipment to enable it to run into Grand Central Terminal, plus NH’s going broke and not being able to properly maintain reliable units, let alone a very,very different breed of cat that the RP210 and its train were mechanically spelled doom for them, too.
I can’t remember the title of the book which has it on the cover, it may have been a hard cover book about the NYC. I spotted it over a year ago in the Cincinnati Public Library.
I rode the Xplorer between Dayton and Cincinnati and the ride was not all that great. I swear the car bottomed while we were leaving the Dayton station.
Another quirk of the engine was how it handled at low speed. It bounced up and down, some say it waddled like a duck.
As the others have mentioned, it was another of the experimental trains at the same general time as the GM Aerotrain and others which simply didn’t live up to expectations.
Dale
Thank you bad management! [#dots]
According to the linked page, the train was scrapped around 1970.
the thing about GM’s Train of Tomorrow is it toured the country…something like 46 states and over 1 million miles…people stood in line for hours to see it…then got in their buicks and hudsons and studebakers and drove home…[sigh]
Hey, they tried!
Nobody could save the passenger trains. But they tried. Since the New Haven was basically a passenger operation, nobody could save it. But they at least tried. The Xplorer, Train “X”, the AreoTrain, High Level Equipment, slumbercoaches, dome cars…nothing worked.
But it wasn’t for lack of trying.
Terms like “lightweight trains craze” and “commercial flop” and “didn’t live up to expectations” speak to another problem with the railroad industry – fear or perhaps disdane for experimentation and innovation.
Yessiree, we are going to keep with the tried-and-true, even if that means an Amfleet car that derives from the Budd Pioneer III design, which was one of the rough-riding lightweight flops from the 1950’s with the prototype ending up in Brazil. Come to think of it, practically all of the European trains that people point to as what we are missing out on would be classified as lightweight by American practices. Come to think of it, there are those who hold the Amfleet car in disdain and want a return to those 6-axle heavyweights.
The Talgo was one of those lightweight train flops, but those doughty Spanish folks haven’t given up on it after over 50 years of trying.
If a passenger rail renaissance ever happens on these shores, it will probably involve lightweight and streamlined train designs for all of the operating cost and fuel efficiency advantages that people had been seeking since the 1950s. The 1950s designs were by-gosh-and-by-golly, and perhaps the GM Aerotrain was the worst hubris. Gee, a GM bus rides down a highway – how about widening that bus out a bit, putting it on a pair of rail axles, and voila, Aerotrain, forgetting about how guidance of a coned wheelset with a solid axle on rails has entirely different driving dynamics than steered rubber wheels on a concrete road.
As part of the 1960’s Northeast Corridor Demonstration Project (TurboTrain, Metroliner, and never-built passenger-ride-in-their-cars auto ferry), the Federal government worked on introducing the scientific method into designing lightweight trains with technology exchange with Japanese and European engineers doing work on this topic, with the 4-car Silverliner test train that was the Metroliner prototype, and with the Pueblo,
Haha don’t tell the people of Seattle that the Talgo is a flop, they might stop riding the high-speed smooth riding Amtrak Talgos in the Pacific Northwest.
It’s amazing how much of the tech we see in Amtrak was the direct lineation of the “failed” tech ideas of the late streamliner era. The Amfleet, Superliners, Empire Turboliners, Talgos, and Surfliners all came from so-called failed tech from that era. In fact, only two of Amtrak’s major cartypes did not come from late streamliner experimental tech. The Horizon cars were designed after commuter equipment and the Viewliner is technically the first true original design idea Amtrak has had to my knowledge.
Cheers!
~METRO
The Talgos being used in the Pacific Northwest are not the same as the Talgos used in the 1950’s, there have been advances in the design in the past 40 years.
European railroads have been willing to accept a lot more down time for maintenance and upkeep than North American railroads, which goes a long way in explaining why de Glehn compounds, Talgo, and other maintenance-intensive designs have worked in Europe and have not lasted very long in North America. Few North American railroads would be willing to accept motive power or rolling stock that would spend one-third of its time in the shop for intensive maintenance and upkeep, instead of earning its keep on the road.
Baldwin built the RP-210 (Train X) in 1956. Pullman supplied the coaches (modified bus bodies). Two trainsets were built, 1 for NYC, and one for NH. The NYC train had one locomotive and 9 cars. The NH set had 2 engines linked by MU running the length of the carset.
The RP-210 trainsets had many innovative features, amoung the most notable was that it was indeed a Talgo tilting articulated trainset. It also featured HEP, and transformers to supply normal 120V power in the cars. The trains were powered by German Maybach aircraft engines built under license, which interestingly powered many airships, including the Graf Zepplin and Hindenburg. The different trainsets both had different power arrangments. The NYC had 2 engines, one V12 drive unit and one V8 auxiliary power unit that supplied HEP and control power. NH sets had one V12 drive engine, an I-6 auxiliary engine, and a PTO on the transmission that connected to the traction motor for electric drive. A second traction motor was located in the locomotive to drive the auxiliary and HEP generator. The diesel engine was connected to a 4 speed hydromatic transmission that allowed the train to reach speeds of 120 mph.
The carbodies were articulated, and rode on the 2 axle drive truck and two axle trailing truck of the locomotive, and had one axle trucks under the articulated connections. The trucks were kept in line by steering levers that ran the length of the trainset and which were control by the leading trucks of the locomotive. These levers also actuated the tilting mechanism of the cars.
It has been stated already that the units had many problems, but the nature of these probelms hasn’t quite been fully described. The most recuring problem was that it had a German engine with metric parts, which were in short supply over here. There were many times that NH and NYC crews called up local Volkswagon dealerships looking for metric bolts and parts. The hydrol
Mathew Imbrogno:
Absolutely fascinating bit of history.
It is a shame that these things ran into troubles with the German lighweight Diesels and hydraulic trannys while the TurboTrains had troubles with the turbine engines (mainly that they guzzled too much fuel) while the Budd SPVs had trouble with the whatever. Lightweight high speed Diesel engines with hydraulic transmissions are not rocket science – they power most of our buses and some trucks have automatic transmissions. I imagine Colorado Railcars encounters resistance to what they would like to sell based on notions that anything other than a Diesel electric locomotive is problematic.
As to other maintenance problems that were the downfall of the 1950s lightweight trains, I heard that some Talgos had trouble tripping signals owing perhaps more to the independent rotating wheels on Talgo rather than the light weight (how much weight is needed for electrical contact anyway?), and if you can’t activate signals, you have serious problems.
As to rough riding, it is hard to get a feel for things because people have different standards. That the GM Aerotrains had serious ride quality problems is a given owing to the unguided single-axle trucks. The ride quality of TurboTrain or Talgo is the subject of some controversy. I am sure it is not up to the standards of the 6-axle heavyweight Pullman cars, but is it good enough? And is Talgo intrinisically high maintenance? I read that the Pacific Talgo trains have had onboard techs from Talgo in the style of GM techs doing en-route maintenance on the early Diesel streamliners, but with the 567 engine they got something ultra-reliable going. The question is if the Talgo techs are there for early-adoption teething problems or if high maintenance is intrinsic to the Talgo design.
As to ride quality, I have ridden the Amtrak French TurboLiners, and thought they were exceptionally smooth. I have ridden Metra gallery car
Having actually ridden the Xplorer I can attest to it’s difficulty with a rough ride at times. I think the big issue was jointed rail more than it’s lightweight but that’s a guess based on an experience back some 50 years ago.
There has been a lot of discussion about the ride but we’ve got to remember today’s cars are riding for the most part on welded rail and that makes a big difference. It might be of some value if anyone in the discussion has had experience riding VIA’s imported cars and what difference in ride might be experienced on different sections of track.
I agree the experiments have paved the way for modern equipment but the comments about folks not riding the train(s) at all really sums up why they disappeared.
Dale
One of the New Haven’s experimentals was the Budd “Hot Rod”. later broken up with its individual units used in the Budd RDC pool, and the riding quality of those cars was not much different in any respect than a typical RDC, OK, but not great. I rode a somewhat shorter version of the complete train running as the New Haven - Boston via Springfield Amatrak “Bay State” about 1972 or 1973, and there was nothing remarkable good or bad about the experience. I rode the New Haven’s Turbotrains many times, and into Amtrak service as well, both when they ran into Grand Central and later when they ran into Penn. High-speed ride quality was excellent, but low speed on jointed track not up to normal standards, but acceptable for short times. The problem with the Turbotrains was the lack of fuel economy.
GM’s Train of Tomorrow has no relation to any of the other equpment discussed on this thread. It was standard state-of-the-art post-WWII lightweight equipment, inlcuding one of the earliest dome cars, probably the first built by Pullman and the first not built by a railroad shop or by Budd. The dome coach ended up in regular service, and I think I rode it between Seattle and Portland on either the GN or NP. Someone on the thread can answer that question.
The best techinical reference to the history of the X train concept is a book written by John F Kirkland which comprises volume 3 of The Diesel Builders series of books. As noted in the book, the use of single axle trucks was the main culprit of dissatisfaction with the riding quality which may have lent confusion with the Aerotrain which was a GM product, not a Baldwin product, which the Xplorers were. These locomotives were amazingly compact. On page 145, there is a photograph of one posed next to an NYC F7A which really dwarfed it by comparison in size.
Is there anywhere today where you can ride a 6 axle Pullman at 70+ miles per hour? Those were before my time. Is there any objective data comparison of the amount and velocity of jump and sway on various rail passenger equipment? Does a frame insulated from body produce a smoother ride as say a 1966 Ford Galaxy compared to a unibody Tarus?