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Amtrak Turboliner.........Detroit to Buffalo via Southern Canada

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Amtrak Turboliner.........Detroit to Buffalo via Southern Canada
Posted by CMStPnP on Friday, July 15, 2016 6:12 PM

Never even knew it happened.    Appears at mark 4:38 in the below video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJVhQvmN0_U

 

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Posted by 081552 on Saturday, July 16, 2016 11:51 AM

I'm not sure how you got the "Detroit to Buffalo" part. The video just shows the train sitting in the MC station.

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Posted by Dragoman on Saturday, July 16, 2016 11:55 AM
The audio commentary, as I heard it, describes the train as waiting to make a demonstration run to Buffalo by way of the line through Canada.
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Posted by Overmod on Saturday, July 16, 2016 2:36 PM

081552
I'm not sure how you got the "Detroit to Buffalo" part. The video just shows the train sitting in the MC station.

Let me give you something a bit more definitive, then

This is the middle of January 1977, and the service is the Niagara Rainbow (train 64) over the CASO; at the time, the train didn't serve Niagara Falls directly, but would after October 1978.  This was made possible by subsidies from New York and Michigan; those stopped by mid-1979, and so did the train, and ultimately so did the CASO.

I hadn't realized until now that Turboliners were used on that train.  Might have been interesting to see what speed could be achieved...

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Posted by oltmannd on Sunday, July 17, 2016 8:06 AM

Overmod

 

 
081552
I'm not sure how you got the "Detroit to Buffalo" part. The video just shows the train sitting in the MC station.

 

Let me give you something a bit more definitive, then

This is the middle of January 1977, and the service is the Niagara Rainbow (train 64) over the CASO; at the time, the train didn't serve Niagara Falls directly, but would after October 1978.  This was made possible by subsidies from New York and Michigan; those stopped by mid-1979, and so did the train, and ultimately so did the CASO.

I hadn't realized until now that Turboliners were used on that train.  Might have been interesting to see what speed could be achieved...

 

Both are Amtrak 157.  Wonder if it's the same test trip.  I don't recall the Rainbow ever being Turboliner equipped. The Adirondak was...  

-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/

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Posted by 081552 on Sunday, July 17, 2016 1:19 PM

I stand corrected!

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Posted by Overmod on Sunday, July 17, 2016 1:28 PM

oltmannd
Both are Amtrak 157. Wonder if it's the same test trip.

Either that, or the set was used for the period of an extended test.  I'd have thought either you or Mr. Carleton to be a distinctive reference for this!

I recently quoted from a Sikorski promotion of the UA Turbotrain for high-speed New-York-to-Buffalo service in 1967 (in a carefully-computed 4 hours 35 minutes)  A very logical follow-on service from New York to Detroit would have involved running at high track speed over the CASO in preference to going by way of Cleveland, although (regrettably!) the detail analysis of route speed was not extended.  The 'maximum speed' I saw quoted was a comparable 120mph in several places (mostly north/west of Albany, of course).  Were there discussions with the Canadians about what would have been needed to implement 125mph Turboliner speed on that stretch?

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