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| What happened to the Xplorer? https://www.rypn.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8537 |
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| Author: | Bob Yarger [ Tue Feb 17, 2004 12:58 pm ] |
| Post subject: | What happened to the Xplorer? |
New York Central's passenger train experiment of the 1950s. I think it went to the shortline Pickens RR, but lost track. When and where was it scrapped? http://abpr2.railfan.net/abprphoto.cgi?july03/07-16-03/12-025x.jpg ryarger@rypn.org |
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| Author: | jimwrinn [ Tue Feb 17, 2004 1:54 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Re: What happened to the Xplorer? |
> New York Central's passenger train > experiment of the 1950s. I think it went to > the shortline Pickens RR, but lost track. > When and where was it scrapped? Bob, I think it got cut up in a scrap yard on the Greenville & Northern, at the appropriately name town of "Traveler's Rest." Wrinnbo@aol.com |
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| Author: | Aarne H. Frobom [ Tue Feb 17, 2004 4:49 pm ] |
| Post subject: | Cut up around 1970 |
There is a recent book, with a title something like "The 'X` Trains," that contains the history of the Xplorer, the Aerotrain, TALGO, and related designs. The book is poorly edited, but most of the material is there somewhere. I don't think it gives the exact scrapping date of the Xplorer, but I can recall the photo that appeared in Trains Magazine around 1969 of the train stuffed down a siding on the Pickens Railroad, and that the chopped-and-channeled Sharknose and train was cut up some time thereafter. The book says that the train received a little attention in the mid-1960's, when the designers of the United Aircraft Turbotrain looked it over while reviving its steered-axle design. The UA turbotrain was really an Xplorer with a different power unit. On the Xplorer, the prime mover was attached to the hydraulic-drive truck, like on a toy train or a McKeen car. Kind of a shame this didn't survive for foamers to tinker with. Both the "X Trains" book and the new "Pere Marquette Passenger Car Pictorial" show pictures of a Train X test coach behind a shrouded C&O caboose at Wyoming, Michigan, in 1952. Some of these photos show derelict PM 1200's in the background. - Aarne Frobom |
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