U.S. WONDER TRAIN

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 December 1934, Page 4

U.S. WONDER TRAIN

3,334 MILES IN 56 HOURS. NEW YORK, October 25. Thousands of wondering onlookers to-day saw what can now be fanned as the world’s fastest train entei the Grand Central terminal in the heait of the city 56 hours 56 minutes aftei its departure from Los Angeles 3,334 miles away on the P ' acl ., l 2 Coast. The normal time lor the journey is 84 hours. This latest marvel m railway tiavei is a streamlined “flier,” consisting oi six coaches drawn by a 900-h.p. Diesel engine and resembling'a huge silvei cigar 370. feet long. • Among the records which it estaoJishcd on the coast to coast run—records that will become a feature ul tho normal service next, bebiuaij are the following. 14 hours olmin. faster than tne record made by Mr E. H. Harriman, then chairman of the Union Pacific, when he hurried from New York m 1906 with recommendations for the reconstruction of San Francisco aftei the earthquake. An average speed of 84 m.p.h. ovei the 508 miles from Cheyenne (Wyoming) to Omaha (Nebraska), which is compared with the average of 81.0 m.p.h. of the Cheltenham Flier while covering the 77.’ miles from Swindon to London two years ago. A top speed claimed as the highest ever made by a. regular fully-equipped train of 120 m.p.h. for two miles after leaving Cheyenne. Many incidental records also leu to the train, such as a reduction of the average for the 2,364 miles from Los Angeles to Chicago, including crossing the Rockies, to. 60.61 m.p.h. ’ After Chicago, the train kept to the schedule of the ordinary Twentieth Century Limited express, thereby reducing the average for the whole run to less than 59 m.p.h. The time of 39 hours from Los Angeles to Chicago is compared with the regular time of the Santa 1 e express, which is 55 hours. The train carried 52 passengers it has a capacity for 120 —including Mr W. A. Harriman, son of Mr E. H. Harriman, who made the 1906 journey to San Francisco. The three sleeping compartments, the dining car, the mail and baggage car, and the power car look like a single unit, for they are .“articulated by .means of rubber joints. It weighed only 200 tons with its fifty-two passengers. This compares with 1,200 tons weight of the locomotivedrawn Los Angeles Limited Express, with 100 passengers which was sidetracked during the journey to let the “flier” pass. A steam train with the same capacity as the “Streamliner” would require 3,000 h.p. compared with the 900 developed by the Diesel. Operating costs will, it is estimated be forty to fifty per cent, less than for the ordinary steam express. An oil-burning engine runs the generator which furnishes the power for the electric motors, which are mounted near the driving wheels. Two similar trains are already under construction, in what is regarded as a bid by the railways to compete with aeroplanes. No .extra charge will be made for saving nearly twenty hours between Chicago and the West Coast, which the new: service will provide. Three men, working in shifts, drove the train the whole distance. One of them fainted in the heat of New York.