JetTrain

The Bombardier JetTrain was a project of Bombardier Transportation for an insertable in North America high-speed train on the Acela Express and based on distances without contact wire could be used. It was built as a single vehicle, the engine head, which has a gas turbine as the prime mover. After a few demonstration runs at the beginning of the 2000s the drive head in the Transportation Test Center in Pueblo (Colorado) was positioned behind.

History

In the late 1990s the U.S. Department of Transportation wanted to show technological possibilities that would allow it to gradually introduce the high-speed traffic in the country. The Project Next Generation High - Speed ​​Rail Technology included not only the development of a Zugbeeinflussungsystems, suitable crossings and railway tracks also the construction of a catenary independent locomotive for high-speed traffic. The PPP project were 26 million U.S. dollars for research and development available, half of which was acquired by Bombardier. The collaboration was agreed in October 1998.

End of 2003, a consortium of Bombardier and the Flour Group was named as the preferred bidder for the development, construction, operation, maintenance and financing of the first stage of the high-speed network in Florida. As of 2009, there JetTrain trains between Tampa and Orlando should operate.

Technology

The JetTrain could be used in various combinations that would have been equipped with one or two power cars and would have carriage with active systems. There were planned both trains with a power head and four to seven cars, as well as trains with two power heads and intermediate cars up to eleven. The vehicles were based on those of the Acela Express.

Powercar

The power head is the only vehicle that was built. Carbody and bogies were taken over by the Acela Express. The drive was about an ST20 gas turbine Pratt & Whitney. The turbine was derived from that used in regional aircraft type PW150, which was used as a diesel fuel. Via gears, turbine powered a generator that powered the water-cooled IGBT power converter with energy. At low speeds, the turbine was shut down and the power supply carried by an auxiliary diesel motor driving the generator through the joint to the turbine transmission.

Car

The cars were those of the Acela Express and have been similarly has a hydraulically operated tilting, which would have tilted in the curves at 6 ° to the inside of the car body. There were planned both first ( Business Car ) and second class (Coach Car) car as well as a bistro car (Business Car). The car would have had a uniform length of 26 645 mm and were 57.6 to 59.9 t been hard.

Experimental and demonstration rides

The engine head with the number 2002 was completed in the summer of 2000, peaking in the summer of 2001 on the test track of the Transportation Test Center, the speed of 251 km / h On 15 October 2001 the JetTrain at Union Station in Washington, DC to the public. After a promotional tour across Canada in the spring of 2003, followed in October 2003, a demonstration ride to Florida, where the power car was unveiled in Miami from the Finnish racing driver Mika Salo. After the project in Florida failed in a referendum and the project in Canada for financial reasons also did not come forward, the JetTrain disappeared into oblivion.