Transpo '72 - High-speed Rail

High-speed Rail

As part of the High Speed Ground Transportation Act of 1965, the newly formed United States Department of Transportation (DOT) was funding a number of studies into high-speed trains under the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) group. One of these projects was the UAC TurboTrain, which had recently entered service with Canadian National Railways, only to be pulled from service shortly after due to a wide variety of minor problems. One of the two three-car TurboTrain prototypes built for the DOT visited Transpo.

However, the DOT was more interested in really high speed trains, and had been funding several developments along these lines for some time. In order to expedite these developments, they had recently selected a parcel of land outside Pueblo, Colorado as a test site that would become the Transportation Technology Center (TTC). They planned on using the TTC to lower the cost of all-up testing of advanced designs, as well as guaranteeing that all the participants would have a level playing field. Several U.S. companies were in the process of building hovertrain systems based on technology licensed from the French Aérotrain project, known under the U.S. term "Tracked Air-Cushion Vehicle", or "TACV", and these were in the process of being set up at the TTC.

Several models of proposed developments were shown at Transpo. These included models of Garrett AiResearch's wheeled linear induction motor (LIM) testbed vehicle, drawings of Grumman Aircraft's and General Electric's TACV proposals, and a full-sized mock-up of a futuristic Rohr design. Three of the four designs eventually won contracts and were built to varying degrees at the TTC; Garrett's wheeled vehicle started testing under jet power before the LIM reaction plate was installed, Grumman's vehicle was given an extensive 22-mile (35 km) track, but ran out of funding before the planned LIM reaction plate could be installed, and Rohr's vehicle was the last to arrive and received the least build-out with only a mile and a half of LIM-equipped track. Like the PRT systems, none of the TACV proposals would ever see commercial development.

British Rail also attended, bringing with them a full-sized mockup of the Advanced Passenger Train, at that point still powered by a gas turbine before its conversion to electric power. In another part of the British pavilion was a display by Tracked Hovercraft, which was starting tests on its track near Cambridge that year. The French exhibit included both the Aerotrain and recent developments of SNCFs high-speed efforts, which would emerge as the TGV.