This is the weirdest thing we’ve ever seen. It’s an experimental train built in Germany during the early ‘30s. Not so strange until you realize it went 130 mph and was shoved along by a giant ass propeller.
It was called the Schienenzeppelin (Rail Zepplin) and it was designed by a guy named Franz Kruchenberg who had spent most of his life designing, wait for it, Zepplin type airships. He took those ideas and design themes and brought them to the rails in the form of a bullet-shaped train.
The German government (which was already showing signs of getting weird at the time) threw a pile of money at the project and it only took about a year to build the machine from scratch with eight engineers and thirty laborers working on it.
It was huge. Coming in at over 85 feet in length and about 10 feet tall, it weighed more than 20 tons and used wheels of more than three feet in diameter. The engine was a BMW aircraft motor that made in excess of 600 hp and the prop was a four blade unit made of wood. It was designed to be a multi-compartment style engine that would have seated more than 30 people with smoking and non-smoking sections, a dining area, and bathroom.
Once the thing was built they were ready to test it but ran into a problem when no insurance company in Germany would cover it. Eventually they sought insurance from Lloyds of London, who wrote up a policy, which we’re thinking was not cheap.
The hammer was officially dropped in 1931 when the train went out and ran 125 mph, then 145 mph to set a new speed record for trains. That record stood for more than 20 years.
All this was well and good, but the reality was that this design was destined for failure. Some reasons were that it had no reverse and was basically impossible to couple to anyother train cars. Not to mention the fact that it needed a small motor to get moving as the prop did not provide enough umph to get the train started on its own.
It was about as useful as you-know-whats on a bull. It certainly looked cool though!
By 1935, all the testing that could be done was done and a diesel motor was plunked into the front of the train. In 1939 when WWII was looming on the horizon the German government had the train scrapped. An unfitting end to a truly bizarre project.
The small motor to get it started reminds me of wind turbines today. First they use power to turn the propellers into the wind, then they use more electricity to start the proops spinning until they can catch the wind…and then they have to feather and stop if the wind is above about 45 MPH. Hundreds of millions of taxpayers dollars are wasted on those wothless POS’s.
You sound like one of those bible belt republicans who think women can shut down their reproductive organs whenever they are raped. Get real.
I thought Bangshift was a place for gear heads, not political trolls.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_turbine
AMEN! …I mean, you’re right. The people around Amarillo fought wind generators because they thought if they were installed the steady 20-30 mph winds would stop….seriously, they thought the wind would stop.
Fix blade prop, I bet if they had a variable pitch prop availible at the time they would have been in business. They would not have been able to couple cars but there would be reverse…Motorized freaks…Love em’