Budd Garrett experimental gas-turbine M-1 cars

We heard it go by the tracks next to the Grumman Model RR Club building one night. It had a very different sound. By the time we went outside all we could see were the tail lights.
Ray

RPM2Night wrote:Did these have a trap door and steps for low level platform access, or is that whole structure under the door to protect crews from the equipent under the car?

Read back in this thread to find the details you seek.

-otto-

No need to, someone else was kind enough to answer my question. Thanks

If anyone has the book, The Commuter Railroads, by Patrick Doran, circa 1969, there is a photo of a Budd Company Turbine Car on page, 54.
The picture was taken at Montauk yard.

This car however, looks nothing like an M-1, nor does it look like an RDC car, it looks like a coach car, with doors at one end and the engineers cab at the other.

It has the Budd emblem on the car, and "turbine car" listed on 2 of the filled in windows. Of the 10 oval windows along the visible side of the car, 3 are filled in.

What was this ??

Ken

That was GT-1 or GT-2 basicly same Garret test car first with turbine only later with third rail and turbine.

That test car with the oval windows was obviously based on the Budd Pioneer III car. First it was a direct drive turbine. Its performance was tremendous, with acceleration equal to that of electric MU equipment, but it was a real fuel guzzler. So then it was outfitted as a turboelectric, with the turbines driving alternator-rectifiers, and the wheels turned by traction motors. This led later to the Budd-Garrett experimental cars.

IIRC, the later turbine electrics had the engines up in the roof. Wouldn't surprise me - gas turbines aren't that big or heavy. IIRC, Turbotrain's were only 300 lbs for a 300hp unit, and not much bigger than a kitchen wastebasket.

I looked up some information on the Budd-built coach used for the GT-1 and GT-2 test car:
It was Budd's original prototype Pioneer 3 coach #5880 built in 1956-this car toured railroads
for two years and 120,000 miles but Budd received no orders for any of these coaches.

In the book "The American Railway Passenger Car" by John H. White Jr.(Johns Hopkins University Press-1978)there is a picture on Page 177(Fig 2-84) of this car with the caption
"An ultra-lightweight demonstration model-Pioneer 3 - The car was intended for quantity production but no orders were received except for electric commuter cars."

Other information I found on this car was its light weight-26 1/2 tons or 56,000 pounds
with the cost for the car being $90,000. The Pioneer 3 style was used for the original six
MU cars built for PRR in 1958-they weighed 90,000 pounds-virtually the same as a M1 MU car and later for PRR and RDG in 1963. These later models weighed around 100,000 pounds.

Other info can be found on the Pioneer 3 Budd cars on page 639 and 642 of that book.
It also mentions a Railway Age article on Page 50 of the 3/21/55 issue about this original car.

This should help answer some questions concerning GT-1 and GT-2. MACTRAXX

The 1958 Pioneer IIIs are also known as the SEPTA Silverliner I.

R36 Combine Coach wrote:The 1958 Pioneer IIIs are also known as the SEPTA Silverliner I.

Actually, the single Pioneer III prototype, which started life as an unpowered coach, was far different than the EMUs. I've never been able to find any drawings of the prototype Pioneer III?

I know this is a little late for posting on this thread but since I just joined, I'll chime in. Back in 1976-77 I was a laborer in the Morris Park Locomotive Shop, and I was working the fuel dock on 3rd trick. During the night we heard this loud roaring sound come into the fuel dock, something we had never heard before. Since we were used to Alcos, and the new EMDs, old leased EMDs, we were shocked to see 4 "M1s" blasting through the fuel dock the wrong way screaming like jets. These cars were damn near bone dry on fuel and we were rushed to get them filled, the took diesel. The cars were the GEs and they were regulars for a while until they were deemed too expensive to run. Years later after my electrical apprenticeship was over I worked in the electric car shop in MP and we had both the GEs and Garretts out in the yard behind the shop. We played with the Garretts to try to get them going again, but it just never transpired, we couldn't keep the engines running. The Garretts had nice small turbines, and I tried unsuccessfully to get permission to take one of the turbines for myself when we found out the cars were to be scrapped. This was about 1981-82.

I just stumbled accross your discusion on the GTE cars. I am the Design Engineer who did the Electrical on the turbine pod and the hydo formed structure to hold it all to geather. I was dictated to use indoor components in an out door situation, every thing got wet with the turbine sucking everything in from the outside. Because of my consern some one would be fried I had every thing reinsulated for the inviroment I thought the engines would be operating in. Pullman Sandard located on the south side of Chcago made the cars for us I think this was in 1973. One of my jobs was to make sure they made the cars per contract. At that time Pullman Standard had a large order for cars so they wanted to set ours aside. I never knew what happened to the cars after I did my job, I did know our field service had to run back and forth to New York quit often and the turbines sucked in a lot of Snow and water. At this time our company was the Garrett corp., then it became Allied- Signal Corp., and is now Honeywell International Corp. We called the cars GTE and latter GT3

The car was a Budd Pioneer coach, not pullman standard, as i recall.

DutchRailnut wrote:The car was a Budd Pioneer coach, not pullman standard, as i recall.

As per earlier posts in this thread, there were two sets of turbine cars: the GE-Budd collaboration and Garrett project.

There were 3 projects the Budd demonstrator pioneer car with Garret turbine.

http://www.trainsarefun.com/lirr/mineol ... ineola.jpg
and

http://www.trainsarefun.com/lirr/Ronkon ... onkoma.jpg

And then two sets each of M1 modified turbine cars, two married pair by Garrett and two married pair by GE.