Back in 1984 our museum, The Rockhill Trolley Museum, was investigating acquiring a train called the Advanced Concept Train. As I understand it, this was an experiential train built by the government and was tested at Pueblo CO but never on any transit system. I believe it was a 160 foot long permanently coupled train in two cars. We were to receive the train for a paperwork fee and of course the transportation. We decided not to acquire the train and I understand the the train eventually went to the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum. Does the train still exist and has anything ever been done with it?

One of our members has been going through old museum paperwork and asked me about the train, thus the reason for mentioning it.

Joel

The experimental ACT-1 Advanced Concept Train resided unloved for a long time at TVRM and was finally scrapped within the last couple of years.

Alan Maples

http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1544498

Photo at TVRM. Looks like a less practical and more expensive version of BART.

If anyone knows, I am curious how TVRM acquired the train and what their thoughts were for getting it.

Joel

To make a film version of the Simson's monorail episode? Actually it was an interesting artifact of idea development, perhaps the inspiration for the TV show Supertrain. IRM and Seashore have saved several experimentals and mock-ups. I suppose the Pioneer Zephyr at the MSI and the two preserved Aerotrains are also experimentals.

TVRM made every effort to give the thing away for preservation, even offering to pay for loading and shipping at one point - I made the offer to at least one group under the approval of the late TVRM President Bob Soule. Indeed, a lot of the design features were incorporated into the BART cars.

Some poor recollection comes to mind that a former Chattanooga mayor was involved in the acquisition, but others can correct that if my recall is wrong. I'm not sure TVRM ever really felt it was anything more than a occupier of track space, but political reasoning was surely a consideration. That opinion is strictly my own, and not in any way an official TVRM position. For me, spending resources on the ACT-1 would have been a waste with other more significant items needing the limited means. This might not have been the case at a traction museum or some place with a more national scope, but not for a museum that primarily offers a steam railroad experience.

It had some neat design elements and one of our members worked for Heywood-Wakefield when they were still in business (the new HW is not the same company, though their home and office furnishings are based on original designs). He remembers designing the seats for the thing.

Best,
Mike

I recall that Seashore Trolley Museum has the SOAC cars devloped for rapid trainsit use. Was this from the same program as the ACT-1?

Wesley

My understanding is that the trainset had some sort of propulsion system that was supposed to be super effecient and "modern" I was told that in practice the train never turned a wheel under its own power. The "engine" was too complicated to make work...the idea was quickly abandonned. It was the very definition of "government waste".

The train sat in the sun at TVRM for years and gradually started coming apart...it looked dreadful. I was pleased to see that it had been discarded.

T7

My memory is that it was purchased from the GSA for a very small amount of money (I mean like $100) but shipping was around $14,000. As Mike alluded, a former mayor of Chattanooga, Ralph Kelley (yes this is the same one that had the General stopped in Chattanooga when the L&N tried to move it to Kennesaw in 1967), led a fund raising effort that was successful to move the ACT-1 to Chattanooga.

Upon arrival, it proved to be a popular exhibit. We did get all the manuals but we obviously lacked the 3rd rail needed to power it. There was some kind of flywheel arrangement in it that was supposed to make it more energy efficient. After many years in the intense sun, the glazing began to craze significantly. Then the water leaks started as the plastic components deteriorated. After that, it was all downhill for the ACT-1. It was no longer displayable and became a waste of track space. Because of its unique construction, trying to restore it was well beyond TVRM's expertise and it did not fit into future plans.

Mike was also right about the attempts to give it away to another interested museum. We even offered to pay shipping since it was going to cost money to have it scrapped. After years of futile attempts, it was consigned to a scrapper and eliminated from existence a couple of years ago.

Here is the information on the State of the Art Cars (SOAC) at Seashore from the same time period as ACT-1.

http://www.trolleymuseum.org/exhibits/soac.php

Wesley

I remember these cars, the (SOAC) cars now at Seashore, when they tested on the Chicago Transit Authority in '72 or '73. They were too wide for the CTA platform clearance, so they could only test on one route, the Skokie Swift, and the Feds paid to have two power retractable platforms installed... your tax dollars at work. Anyway, to make a long story short, I was underwhelmed. The cars looked futuristic, but if revised to have ends that would accommodate train doors, they would have looked pretty much like what the CTA was buying at the time (and ever since). As I recall, performance wasn't anything to write home about, either.

Why do people insist these oddities need to be preserved? To my way of thinking they are an evolutionary dead end, kind of the appendix of the transit world.

I'm kinda in the boat of "why" with such oddities. Certainly there are things that warrant saving, but they are usually successful demonstrators of new concepts and designs - MCRR 8000 comes to mind as a great one that should have been saved.

Generally, though, it's the ordinary every day things that are more rare than anything - freight cars of all shapes and sizes and common equipment of early era railroading (pre-1885) are some of the things that aren't around any more or are so rare as to preclude wider dissemination of information about them.

Mark, thanks for confirming my memories of ACT-1's how and why at TVRM. I'm glad I remembered the back story you told me so many years back.

Best,
Mike

I remember riding on the SOAC cars on the Skokie line as well. The comment about the platforms overstates the scope of what was done. They had to install power operated, drop down edges on a portion of the platforms in each of the two stations it used due to the width of the car compared to CTA standards. These only extended for the combined length of the cars plus a bit to allow their use, not entire platforms as it seems to suggest. Once the demo was over the gear used was removed and could be used elsewhere if needed, while the platfroms were restored to their former width in those limited areas.

The platform modifications at Howard St. were abandoned in place, and were still there after I went to work for the CTA several years later. In fact, they may have still been in place until the mid eighties when the CTA re-decked both Howard St. platforms in their entirety. I don't remember what was done at Dempster St., as I rarely got out there.

I stand corrected. Even though I grew up in the area and lived in Skokie as well as the city I had moved away and was just visiting my parents when I rode the train. But my main point was the limited nature of the modifications in the first place.