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This is the original GM Aerotrain, an experiment to use GM's then-standard city bus bodies, linked together, to form a train. Being the 1950s, a space-age style was adopted an a locomotive built to match. The experiment was largely a failure though, as the engine was underpowered, the ride was anything but smooth, and the whole affair was expensive to maintain. The train ended its life in Rock Island commuter service in Chicago.
Category Photography / Still Life
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 1280 x 960px
File Size 158.3 kB
believe it or not, i saw the remains of those things when they WERE in commuter service. never rode them, but going back east in 1959, from northern california, where i lived then and still do, to new york, where all, or most of my relatives lived at the time. the origeonal power cars were i think out of survice, but they'd taken the remander of their articulated trains, and joind them in pairs to make them longer, and were pulling them with some strangely cosmetically modified e8-units, instead. and yes, they were pretty obviously in some sort of commuter operation.
i don't recall if i saw any of the original power units. they were probably parked on a siding somewhere if i did.
marine iron works of portland oregon build a narrow gauge replica for the portland zoo, that works just fine.
of course it only goes a mile and a half or so, and they've added non-matching cars from another style to increase capacity on peek days.
of course the only real resemblance is appearance. the zoo-liner, at much less then a quarter of the mass of the original, probably has nearly as much, if not more, power then did its standard gauge prototype.
(the zoo liner i've ridden on, multiple times when i lived up there. the rock island aero-train commuter i never did. just saw it from the windows of the through train i was on, entering and leaving the chicago area the same day)
i don't recall if i saw any of the original power units. they were probably parked on a siding somewhere if i did.
marine iron works of portland oregon build a narrow gauge replica for the portland zoo, that works just fine.
of course it only goes a mile and a half or so, and they've added non-matching cars from another style to increase capacity on peek days.
of course the only real resemblance is appearance. the zoo-liner, at much less then a quarter of the mass of the original, probably has nearly as much, if not more, power then did its standard gauge prototype.
(the zoo liner i've ridden on, multiple times when i lived up there. the rock island aero-train commuter i never did. just saw it from the windows of the through train i was on, entering and leaving the chicago area the same day)
Wow, that's really amazing! I've seen the replica at the Washington Park Zoo in Portland, and you're probably right about its power output! This original power unit's wheel arrangement is B-2, in other words, only the front truck is powered, (it has unique FlexiCoil trucks), while the rear two just carry weight. The idea was that the bus bodies making up the train were so lightweight, that's all that would be required.
On another note, Metra, who now owns and operates Rock Island's commuter services in greater Chicago, (as well as all other railroads' commuter trains in the area save for the South Shore Line and a couple Amtrak routes used by commuters) also owns a 1940s-era Rock Island baggage/mail/express car once used by the RI to take US Mail and internal RR deliveries between Joliet and Chicago. It's still in its original RI paint, and is sitting being used for M.O.W. equipment in Metra's Blue Island Yard.
On another note, Metra, who now owns and operates Rock Island's commuter services in greater Chicago, (as well as all other railroads' commuter trains in the area save for the South Shore Line and a couple Amtrak routes used by commuters) also owns a 1940s-era Rock Island baggage/mail/express car once used by the RI to take US Mail and internal RR deliveries between Joliet and Chicago. It's still in its original RI paint, and is sitting being used for M.O.W. equipment in Metra's Blue Island Yard.
See how similar this looks to Disneyland’s old “Viewliner” (the predecessor to the Monorail)…
http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archiv.....liner_1957.jpg
http://www.usc.edu/libraries/archiv.....liner_1957.jpg
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