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A bit of weird historical trivia
Author: Stevo del Applegato
Date: 07-23-2008 - 07:08

On this day forty two years ago, the North American rail speed record was broken.
On a long straight stretch of New York Central track in Ohio, a slightly modified NYC RDC-3 attained a speed of 183.85 mph.

Okay, "slightly modified" probably isn't the correct term. NYC President A.E. Perlman got the idea to attach a set of General Electric J-47-19 engines on top of Budd RDC M-497. The front end was fitted with a sloped cowling to reduce wind resistance and turbulance The test was to gather data engineering data about high speed rail traffic on existing trackage.

Although the test was successful, the data was pretty much ignored, as the NYC and Pennsylvania railroads were on a collision course for their doomed merger. After the tests, the jets were removed and the RDC went on to live another couple of decades.

The North American speed record stands to this day.

sda

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Subject Written By Date/Time (PST)
  A bit of weird historical trivia Stevo del Applegato 07-23-2008 - 07:08
  Re: A bit of weird historical trivia J 07-23-2008 - 07:37
  Re: A bit of weird historical trivia Mike Stimpson 07-23-2008 - 10:20
  Re: A bit of weird historical trivia CPRR 07-23-2008 - 10:22
  Re: A bit of weird historical trivia david vartanoff 07-23-2008 - 17:58
  Re: A bit of weird historical trivia GRRR 07-23-2008 - 19:44


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