• Hi Guest!

    The costs of running this forum are covered by Sea Lion Press. If you'd like to help support the company and the forum, visit patreon.com/sealionpress

That 1960s spirit: WI turbine engines had caught on?

Hendryk

Taken back control yet?
Published by SLP
Location
France
In 1963 Chrysler developed an experimental turbine-powered car, which they named, very creatively, the Chrysler Turbine. It could run on any fuel, not that it was seen as a selling point at a time when everyone thought oil would stay cheap forever, and had a number of advantages over an internal combustion-powered car. But the company hit a rough patch around the time the Turbine was scheduled for commercial release, and with the engines failing to meet new emission regulations, the project was shelved.

What if the idea had caught on?

 
Hmm, it would have been fascinating - didn't the original TGV prototype use a gas turbine before it was switched in the final version for electric propulsion?
 
Hmm, it would have been fascinating - didn't the original TGV prototype use a gas turbine before it was switched in the final version for electric propulsion?
Yes, and it was informally known as the "Turbotrain". I'm not sure for what reason SNCF eventually went with electric power, though I suspect lobbying by the nuclear industry.

The video I linked to does a good job of explaining the pros and cons of a turbine engine for a car. It runs very smoothly (and makes less noise than I would have thought), has fewer moving parts, and doesn't even require a gearbox, but on the other hand it keeps spinning at full power even when the car is idle, which is suboptimal for city traffic. There's also that emission issue, though I'm sure fitting the exhaust with a proper filter would have taken care of that.

As a childhood fan of Spirou et Fantasio, I can't but mention that Franquin imagined that his characters would get to drive two turbine-powered cars in succession, the Turbotraction and the Turbo 2. So the idea was in the air back then.

Question_1-3.jpg
 
Hmm, it would have been fascinating - didn't the original TGV prototype use a gas turbine before it was switched in the final version for electric propulsion?

There were experiments with Turbine locomotives in the UK as well, starting off with the two Great Western engines back in the 1940's (not finished until after nationalisation) one of the pair - 18000 spent 15 years in Vienna before ending up back in the UK for preservation. Both were found to be more expensive to run than imagined but very reliable. Then there was GT3 which was just strange in design, but again reliable in service and might have stood a chance of a production run if it hadn't have been so strangely designed. Finally, of course, the first prototype of the Advanced Passenger Train in 1972 (aka the Queasyrider) was a gas turbine and had the Class 370 been a success, then there would have been a turbine version for non-electrified lines.
 
Back
Top