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Cold War Silliness

April 12th, 2007 by ben

At the height of the cold war, amidst talk of radical changes in transportation, a battle cry could be heard from our Soviet neighbors: “We’re Russian, we don’t need no stinking bullet train … we have a jet plane instead”:

Russian Jet Train

This is actually a real train, albeit a prototype, built by the Russians in the early 1970s. Its maximum speed was about 180 mph, pretty impressive for an age when trains rarely exceeded 80, and it would still be amongst the fastest trains in the world today. via English Russia

Not surprisingly, the Russians got the idea from the United States:

United Stated Jet Train

This is the M-497, a jet-powered engine was tested in New York during the summer of 1966. No passengers were ever transported, but the train did exceed 183 mph (still a U.S. record today).

I would have figured the Russians would have at least tried to hit 184 to clinch the record, but (like me) they probably were just having trouble with the metric system conversion and gave up.

via Dark Roasted Blend

Posted in Pictures, Random |

14 Responses to “Cold War Silliness”

on 12 Apr 2007 at 1:42 am Anthony

249 km/hr sounds way cooler than 183 mph :). Some day we’ll dump the old british system and learn to count by 10’s. Probably not in my lifetime though

Anthony Scott
My Insane Membrane
on 12 Apr 2007 at 6:23 am Alice

Is this thing save to ride? I would not want to travel with such a timing bomb. Maybe some would!
on 12 Apr 2007 at 1:31 pm johnny dollar

good thing they never built these in the u.s.
can you imagine what would happen if MARC had those? they’d end up in the chesapeake bay or something.
on 12 Apr 2007 at 6:11 pm Andi

Johnny Dollar, the second picture is an AMERICAN train. Look at the picture, it says NEW YORK CENTRAL on the side
on 13 Apr 2007 at 11:23 am Flavour man, who flavours things

Yeah, dump that old British system that even the British don’t use anymore. Silly British! How could they come up with such a system? OH WAIT ARE WE THE ONLY IDIOTS STILL USING IT? Doik Americanas.
on 15 Apr 2007 at 2:50 pm david

Andi,
He said that the 2nd and 3rd pics were American only the first one was Russian. read before you post.
on 16 Apr 2007 at 11:36 am DogSolitude » Russian Jet Train

[...] Russina Jet Train, via Say No to Crack [...]
on 17 Apr 2007 at 7:06 am Ferenc TIMÁR

Hi!

I’m a railfan from Hungary.

The idea isn’t so much new: german ingenieur Franz Kruckenberg invented his “Schienenzeppelin” which was a 2 axle railcar powered with an airplane motor fitted with a 4 blade wooden-propeller. It took a world speed record for railcars on 21/06/1931 at 230.2 km/h!
See: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schienenzeppelin
regards
on 17 Apr 2007 at 2:43 pm MuffinMonkey

Typical Americans

THE SOVIET UNION WERE BETTER AT ENGINEERING THAN YOU

Face it
on 18 Apr 2007 at 7:22 pm EvilGod

183 mph is 294 kph, an even more impressive sounding number. Sorry Anthony.
on 23 Apr 2007 at 7:46 am Dave

FYI, Flavour man;

The Brits do still use miles per hour to measure speed, and I’m told that Liberia and Myanmar do as well (though I’ve never been to either place to know for sure.) Besides, what difference can it make whether you measure it in MPH or KPH? KPH may be more impressive, for those that are impressed by big(ger) numbers, but the speed is the same.

And what’s wrong with learning a few obscure number relationships? I say the metric system is for math wimps.

And MuffinMonkey:

I guess that’s why the Americans were copying all of the Soviet engineering marvels… OH WAIT! It was the Soviets doing the copying. That’s right!
on 12 May 2007 at 3:23 pm Steve

The british only use mph on their signage, the excuse for not changing them being confusion for those who received no education in the metric system. That implies the children *are* learning the metric system in schools.

The signage transition to metric has been scheduled and canceled since the 70s. They’re required by EU law to change the signs as well, so look for that transition soon.

In doing any calculations or engineering work they most likely use metric.

As for Liberia and Myanmar…if that’s the standard by which you want to compare the United States of America… “Well Myanmar is doing it!” - not a great endorsement.
on 20 Sep 2007 at 3:51 am Tim

An interesting post I found about nuclear ships from the cold war!!

Nuclear Ships of the Cold War

-Tim
on 17 Nov 2007 at 6:59 pm Fred Fep

The New York Central used old B-47 jet turbines, they were used to power the wheels and gears on this mocked up Budd RDC car. The jets did not provide the propulsion. The front cowcatcher was put there for weight, the turbines faced slightly forward and down to also provide a sort of ballast. This took place on a straight stretch of track outside Cleveland. The center diesel of this car was removed for this experiment c. 1965, two runs were made, the car purportedly came off the ground at grade crossings. It was done to set the record, and was taken apart and the RDC returned tos ervice. The NY central took this experiment to also announce they would be dropping all intercity passenger trains over 200 miles in distance including the 20th Centrury Limited.

The Russian experiment looks like it converteda streamline streetcar and that it used its jets for propulsion.