Why The Aerotrain Totally Failed

from lrange Illinois comes the experimental aot train representing GM's New Concept in railroading in the 1950s the general electric aerot train was envisioned as a futuristic Marvel for travel from New York to Chicago yet it faced a paradox in reality you see despite its Sleek appearance the journey on board this train was miserable marked by uncomfortable noises and shakiness consequences of ambitious ideas colliding with technological limitations of the time in an era where trains dominated Long Range travel the aerot train attempted to redefine Transportation though flawed its lasting Legacy has influenced subsequent developments in train technology and highlighted the inconvenient Crossroads of aspiration vers reality so join me to discover why it failed and what remains as we discover the history of the aot train I'm your host Ryan soash and you're watching its history [Music] train routes from New York to Chicago first opened in 1853 providing for the westward expansion of the United States as people relocated to the sparsely populated areas of the West after that trains gradually got bigger faster and eventually more luxurious as people began to travel for pleasure and business however these Trends will not last forever and in the decades to follow as people were able to buy cars and Inter City travel was open to the air Innovation became more necessary than ever by the ' 50s the once thriving industry needed to change or it would face permanent damages so to return to profitability it was decided trains needed to balance lightweight design and fuel efficiency with passenger comfort and speed qualities that turn out to be very difficult to achieve in the form of a train General Motors vice president of styling Harley Earl took the initiative to the company's electromotive Division and lead designer Chuck Jordan to Earl this opportunity to fill the Gap in the market and reinvigorate their locomotive design and sales was obvious so the project had to get ahead quickly however while Jordan was an experienced and MIT educated engineer this should have been taken as something of a first warning sign you see Jordan had worked with General Motors since 1948 and had previously designed the popular Chevy Cameo carrier pickup truck however with only a few years in the company and no previous experience in Railway engineering he might not have been the best choice for lead designer and it wasn't that General Motors didn't have bureaus and designers that could have handled this Mission better they previously had massive success selling their E and F model trains so from what I can tell Jordan must have been sent to the project for his perceived value in styling of now popular family and personal Vehicles nevertheless he and his team set to work on designing a more aerodynamic and fuele efficient train the official designation would eventually be the lw12 or lightweight 1200 horsepower train the engine itself was a Fairly reliable 567c 12 cylinder prime mover which was included in other models but this one was more optimized for efficiency it was originally advertised as the Y train in a 1955 issue of look Magazine with which celebrated Cruise speeds higher than 100 mph and crossings from New York to Chicago in just 10 1/2 hours but this was all before a test model was displayed as the penzy aerot Train the next year for the Bodywork well that's where this goes from practical to Unique the aerot train was as implied by the name supposed to be more aerodynamic and from a modern perspective this is quite obvious we probably think of European trains with curved or teardrop front and rear ends of the vehicle or the Japanese bullet trains with long noses like a Formula 1 race car and well for many reasons those designs wouldn't be common or practical for about three decades the aerot Train's interpretation of this is unique the engine car honestly looks like a passenger jet fuel cage sandwiched between a regular train chassis and the top of a Buick Las saber which was Jordan's favorite day-to-day vehicle rather than having a front or mid drivers's cab the cab in instead sat like a regular day car on top of the engine with a full frontal wind screen and styled windows and although I think the train looked beautiful The public's perception was not so positive the train had 10 carriages for passengers counting the observation Carriage once again General Motors and Jordan took an unconventional design approach and the carriages were modeled off of transit buses from GM's motor division it seemed weird even at the time for the train to style itself like its rival in inter city travel but there was a practicality to it the 40 ft long carriages were half the length and weight of the other train cars of the day to improve efficiency by removing the need for a baggage car passengers had storage compartments at the bottom of each carriage for their luggage the observation car even appear to have a vertical tail light like a family Suburban this weight saving and cost cutting meant that GM could advertise through pamphlets and sales brochures that the operational price per ticket would get cut in half and that the need to constantly repair damaged carriages would just be undone by the ability to buy new ones straight from the company with the same ease as Greyhound replacing a broken bus and to be fair in theory all of these advantages potentially could have given GM a solid product that could have helped them stem the bleeding from the national rail Services yet instead of the anticipated booming sales and tickets General Motors would be met with silence on January the 5th 1956 the first aerot train was tested on the run from Washington DC to Newark by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company the other train ran from Chicago to Detroit and the trains did make good time with the Chicago Detroit route being accomplished in approximately 4 hours and the Pennsylvania service would move one of their trains to the regular DC nework route on February the 6th however astonishingly it was withdrawn the next day that February after some adjustments the Pennsylvania company put the train back to work on the New York Pittsburgh route renting the aot train for just $250 a day for an expected 7 and 1/2 hour ride which indeed was record-breaking as that Target would be the fastest that this particular route would ever be accomplished the other train was demonstrated across the inter city routes in the Midwest West Southern Pacific and Union Pacific routes but all the customers pretty much had the same reaction they were unimpressed with the train and they demonstrated their lack of enthusiasm by not buying tickets in turn train companies refused to further lease the train and the few that were left online had serious issues with speed even So eventually in April it was put to service on the Chicago Detroit route remaining the fastest train for that route by about 40 minutes but again these routes didn't persist on the E East Coast the aerot train was relegated to just the Philadelphia Pittsburgh line in June then from July the train running from Union Pacific was relocated to Chicago Cleveland before moving yet again to Los Angeles Las Vegas in December one upside was that the fairs were cheap around 17 bucks for a round trip and the ride would even include free food and the Chuck Wagon car the number two train was eventually joined by its sister before all operations using the aot train were suspended and the Prototype engines were directly returned to GM by now they had been tested across some of the major Rail lines in the country and unfortunately the verdict on their performance was unanimously abysmal the Union Pacific and Pennsylvania Railroads both agreed that whether the trains were on short or long routes the trains just didn't work at anywhere near their top speed the combination of bus style carriages lightweight frames and a poorly integrated air suspension system meant the p passengers were simply miserable one Rider recalls that anywhere near that 100 mph speed Target and the ride would quote almost beat the passengers to death while the noise and the carriages also became unbearable that quotation sounds like an exaggeration but even so it doesn't sound like an environment anyone would want to spend time in and while the train could reach its speed goals on a good day in general it was also underpowered in fact the trains required the help of a cargo diesel locomotive to move through the Steep Canyon pass for the first time all these aspects these failures at every level showed in ticket sales the Union Pacific aerot train never carried a full passenger load once on its LA to Vegas route even after several months of operating in one article it was even said that the train of the future rode like an old truck no major rail company wanted one and so it was both trains would end up being sold to Rock Island Railroad for low speeed computer service at a heavy discount in 1957 they were finally retired for the last time in 1966 their potential as groundbreakers for new cheap reliable and fast rail Transit never came to be Innovations like their bus style cabins for easy replacement were never used and they maintained the same passenger carriages they were shipped to Pennsylvania and Union Pacific with in 1956 the design was a complete failure so the next question has to be why the answer is honestly pretty simple trains need to be designed to meet four criteria speed Comfort lightweight and low operating cost or good utility value the aot train failed because it just wasn't comfortable it was underpowered and overco complicated that General Motors team as led by Harley Earl took an opening they saw in the market and saw to create an Innovative product for it in theory it was a good business but in practice they moved too quickly ultimately the aerotrain was nothing more than a previous engine and carriage system put together under a stylish body design to GM it sounded like enough because the individual components were already proven the passenger carriages would work because they were basically buzzes the engine would work because it was already widely used the suspension would also work because that as well was being used aluminum Halls would work because they were cheap lightweight material that looked beautiful but what GM missed was that none of these aspects were successfully working together nobody used them together and General Motors didn't test them together the fact is for research and production of a new efficient high-speed train system to work years of development are needed sure it doesn't pay off instantly but it can assure customer satisfaction that's the same for trains cars trucks ships and airplanes out of all the businesses in the world you'd think that a company as massive as General Motors would have embraced that notion somehow they didn't and this attitude of Rapid innovation without experimentation would start to cost the company dearly through the 60s thankfully for them the aerot train debacle happened quietly without many people other than train enthusiasts and Market Watchers seeing it other poor designs and Bodywork decisions such as the Chevy Corvair XC cars and later on the Pontiac Phoenix and Buick Skylar and in the'80s well they would not enjoy that same luxury the aerot train may have ended its passenger runs in 1966 but thankfully that wasn't the end of it altogether well the train itself was a disaster people did admire its style it created an image from AAR of a jet skimming along the ground stylishly dragging a trail of passengers from City to City behind it closer it created an image of hybridization as the carriages mirrored the Greyhound buses moving people around America even amongst other attempts at highspeed trains it is Iconic and unique so that's why I'm glad to say that while most of the cars were scrapped as they had been in pretty bad shape by 1966 both of the trains themselves survived train number two is in the National Railroad Museum in Green Bay well engine number one and two of The Passenger cars are at the National Museum of Transportation in St Louis for all their faults it is good to know that both of them survive to tell their story somehow even if that story is a warning to other businesses to avoid becoming a train out of control and we'll leave it there for today but I thank you all for watching I hope you consider subscribing and visiting our members area otherwise until next time I'm Ryan soash signing off

Channel: IT'S HISTORY

Views: 183,086

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Length: 13min 21sec (801 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 29 2024