After reading four books on the LIRR, the most recent being
Stan Fischer's Long Island Rail Road, I've discovered that the
LIRR turbine trains seems to be lost as far as LIRR history goes.
As a commuter out of Ronkonkoma in the 70's, I was used to
riding Ping-Pong's, P72's and P75's. In the mid-70's before the
decision was made to electrify to Ronkonkoma, I was treated to a
week of riding the US-DOT Turbine modified M-1's. As I
remember, there were two versions of four cars each. There
were two major differences between the versions. The first was
the placement of the turbines. On one version the turbine was
located where the luggage rack normally was at the end of each
car and on the other, there was a compartment that looked like a
restroom on the inside. The placement of the outside vents was
how to tell each version.
The second difference was the operation of the automatic
low-level steps. In one version, the trap door slid to the side with
a safety bar to move people used to standing by the door. this
exposed the steps. In the second type, they were like escalator
steps and went from a level position to a step positon.
My questions are as follows:
1- Which turbine type had which type of stairs?
2- Does anyone have any photos of the two versions?
3- Does anyone have any info on the earlier GT-1 Turbine?
4- Was fuel consumption the reason for project failure?
Thanks,
ED,
40 year commuter-railfan and model railroader,
Ex-Long Islander