The Seventies' Solution For Speed - Blog Posts
"Stick an aircraft engine in it" part 2b - the TGV
"Wait, the TGV's electric, right?", I hear you say. You're not wrong: all TGVs in commercial service since 1981 have been electric. But this is the 1972 prototype TGV, and back then, those initials stood for Turbotrain à Grande Vitesse, continuing the development cycle of trains with helicopter engines that had already been introduced on intercity services with the RTG.
This prototype would set the standard of what French high speed rail would become: articulated units of carriages between two power cars, and the distinctive, iconic orange livery I wish they would have kept around in some capacity. The train regularly ran over 300 km/h, peaking at 318 km/h in Southwestern France in December 1972. The difference, of course, is that TGV 001 was equipped with four helicopter-derived gas turbines, two in each power car. As the oil crises hit before the production TGV was properly defined, SNCF were able to redesign the project around electric power in time for the 1980s.
After 15 years of service as a test mule, the train was due to be scrapped, but fortunately the two power cars avoided that fate. Their interiors were gutted, but the cars were saved and put on display as monuments to their builders, Alsthom, at Belfort and Bischheim (North suburb of Strasbourg). UNfortunately, they've been put by the motorway of all places, at both sites, so visiting them isn't very pleasant. At least at Bischheim, there is a footpath on the bridge over the motorway and railway yard, so it's possible to take one's time and get some decent views of the machine that started it all.
"Stick an aircraft engine in it" part 2a - SNCF Turbotrains
Developed in the late 1960s and introduced in the early 1970s, Turbotrains were France's attempt at higher speed rail. Equipped with lightweight and powerful helicopter-based gas turbines, they were capable of 160 km/h service.
However, that introduction date spelled rapid doom for the ETG (Élément à Turbine à Gaz) and RTG (Rame à Turbine à Gaz) types. They were built so they had to be used, the noise and the 430 L/h consumption rate be damned (3 times the consumption of an equivalent Diesel train, and that's just for the prime mover, add another 150 L/h for the generators), but they were constantly moved away from more prestigious routes as soon as those were electrified.
This 1981 photo by Yves Broncard is one of my favourite "so 1970s" pictures: a gas turbine train at Boulogne Aéroglisseurs station, with a massive SR.N4 car-carrying hovercraft arriving in the background - "stick an aircraft engine in it" mentality taken to the max, on land and sea, a combination that seems irrational today.
The last RTGs were withdrawn in the mid-2000s, and one car, T2057, is preserved at the Cité du Train museum in Mulhouse (top photo). But there is another gas turbine train we need to talk about, the one that first bore the letters TGV...
"Stick an aircraft engine in it" part 1 - Boeing Jetfoil
In the late 60s and early 70s, all branches of transport were hoping for an increase in performance similar to what the jet airliner brought to aviation, and the solution was invariably to use similar gas turbine technology, with invariably identical career trajectories when the oil crises hit, as, apart from in aviation, far more economical engine options were available. So I was very surprised to see this still active in Japan last summer:
This is a hydrofoil which uses gas turbines to power a pump-jet. Once it is going fast enough, it takes off and runs on foils, greatly reducing water resistance and achieving speeds up to 45 knots, over 80 km/h (which, on water, is very fast). I remember seeing exactly this type of vessel in ferry brochures when I was a child; Oostende Lines operated some between England and Belgium. The advent of the SeaCat, a class of huge Diesel-powered car-carrying catamarans, got the better of the hydrofoils and the hovercraft, which was incidentally another case of "stick an aircraft engine in it".
This specific class of hydrofoil takes the mantra to another level, as it was designed by Boeing, which named it the 929 Jetfoil. Production was licensed to Kawasaki Heavy Industries in Japan, which made boats for the domestic market. The Rainbow Jet is one of these, running between Sakaiminato on the San'in coast and the Oki Islands. I saw more of them at Atami in Eastern Shizuoka, providing transport to the Izu Islands. So, despite the astronomical 2150 L/h consumption (though to be fair, I can't find consumption numbers for equivalent foot passenger-only catamarans), Japan still runs them...
