TGV 001 (''Train à Grande Vitesse 001'' ) was a high-speed railway train built in France. It was the first

TGV The TGV (french: Train à Grande Vitesse, "high-speed train"; previously french: TurboTrain à Grande Vitesse, label=none) is France's intercity high-speed rail service, operated by SNCF. SNCF worked on a high-speed rail network from 1966 to 19 ...

prototype and was commissioned in 1969, to begin testing in 1972. The TGV 001 was an experimental

gas turbine-electric locomotive A gas turbine locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover (locomotive), prime mover is a gas turbine. Several types of gas turbine locomotive have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is ...

-powered

trainset In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives (often know ...

built by

Alstom Alstom SA is a French multinational rolling stock manufacturer operating worldwide in rail transport markets, active in the fields of passenger transportation, signalling, and locomotives, with products including the AGV, TGV, Eurostar, Avelia ...

to break speed records between . The experimental train was part of a vast research program on high rail speeds. This program covered all technical aspects, principally traction, the behaviour of the vehicles, braking, aerodynamics and signalling. Originally, two trains were to be built, but only one was produced. The second was to be a

tilting train A tilting train is a train that has a mechanism enabling increased speed on regular rail tracks. As a train (or other vehicle) rounds a curve at speed, objects inside the train experience centrifugal force. This can cause packages to slide abo ...

equipped with an active tilting system, but was abandoned owing to technical difficulties.

Description

This

turbotrain The Turbotrain was any of several French high-speed rail, high-speed, gas turbine trains. The earliest Turbotrain entered service in 1967, for use on France's SNCF intercity lines. There were four versions in total, with the last exiting service ...

was built in a radically different fashion than its predecessors (the ETG and the RTG); it was composed of two locomotives and three carriages, all with driving axles. This concept as well as the shape of the TGV 001 was kept when designing the future

. Each

axle An axle or axletree is a central shaft for a rotating wheel or gear. On wheeled vehicles, the axle may be fixed to the wheels, rotating with them, or fixed to the vehicle, with the wheels rotating around the axle. In the former case, bearing ...

was equipped with a

traction motor A traction motor is an electric motor used for propulsion of a vehicle, such as locomotives, electric vehicle, electric or hydrogen vehicles, elevators or electric multiple unit. Traction motors are used in electrically powered rail vehicles (ele ...

with the advantage of small weight per axle but maximum power. Electric traction permitted

dynamic braking Dynamic braking is the use of an electric traction motor as a generator when slowing a vehicle such as an electric or diesel-electric locomotive. It is termed " rheostatic" if the generated electrical power is dissipated as heat in brake grid r ...

, particularly effective at high speeds. Each locomotive was equipped with two

Turbomeca Turmo The Turbomeca Turmo is a family of French turboshaft engines manufacturered for helicopter use. Developed from the earlier Turbomeca Artouste, later versions delivered up to . A turboprop version was developed for use with the Bréguet 941 trans ...

turbines (TURMO III G then TURMO X), also used in the

Super Frelon Super may refer to: Computing * SUPER (computer program), or Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer, a video converter / player * Super (computer science), a keyword in object-oriented programming languages * Super key (keyboard butt ...

helicopters. As well as having direct control of the turbines, the locomotives were equipped with traction, braking and signalling controls. The TGV 001 was an

articulated train Articulated cars are rail vehicles which consist of a number of cars which are semi-permanently attached to each other and share common Jacobs bogies or axles and/or have car elements without axles suspended by the neighbouring car elements. ...

; each carriage shared one

bogie A bogie ( ) (in some senses called a truck in North American English) is a chassis or framework that carries a wheelset, attached to a vehicle—a modular subassembly of wheels and axles. Bogies take various forms in various modes of transp ...

with the next. This setup ensured greater stability and permitted the suspension to be placed near the

centre of gravity In physics, the center of mass of a distribution of mass in space (sometimes referred to as the balance point) is the unique point where the weighted relative position of the distributed mass sums to zero. This is the point to which a force may ...

of each carriage, thus reducing rolling in curves.

Service

Despite setting the

land speed record for railed vehicles The world record for a conventional wheeled passenger train is held by France's TGV (''Train à Grande Vitesse''), set in 2007 when it reached on a section of track. Japan's experimental maglev train L0 Series achieved on a 42.8 km mag ...

(for a gas turbine-powered train) at , this train never saw commercial use.

History

TGV 001 was finished on 24 March 1972 and began to undergo testing on 4 April 1972. It went on to carry out 5227 test runs, running and breaking the barrier 175 times. TGV 001 still holds the world speed record for a

, having travelled at on 8 December 1972. The

1973 oil crisis The 1973 oil crisis or first oil crisis began in October 1973 when the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), led by Saudi Arabia, proclaimed an oil embargo. The embargo was targeted at nations that had supp ...

caused a sharp increase in the

price of oil The price of oil, or the oil price, generally refers to the spot price of a barrel () of benchmark crude oil—a reference price for buyers and sellers of crude oil such as West Texas Intermediate (WTI), Brent Crude, Dubai Crude, OPEC Ref ...

, after which it was deemed impractical to use oil to power the TGV, and the project turned to

electric Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as described by ...

traction. Tests officially concluded on 19 June 1978.

Preservation

*T 001 : Bischheim (

Bas-Rhin Bas-Rhin (; Alsatian: ''Unterelsàss'', ' or '; traditional german: links=no, Niederrhein; en, Lower Rhine) is a department in Alsace which is a part of the Grand Est super-region of France. The name means 'Lower Rhine', referring to its low ...

) *T 002 :

Belfort Belfort (; archaic german: Beffert/Beffort) is a city in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in Northeastern France, situated between Lyon and Strasbourg, approximately from the France–Switzerland border. It is the prefecture of the Territo ...

(

Territoire de Belfort The Territoire de Belfort () is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region, eastern France. It had a population of 141,318 in 2019.Turbotrain The Turbotrain was any of several French high-speed rail, high-speed, gas turbine trains. The earliest Turbotrain entered service in 1967, for use on France's SNCF intercity lines. There were four versions in total, with the last exiting service ...

Gas turbine-electric locomotive A gas turbine locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover (locomotive), prime mover is a gas turbine. Several types of gas turbine locomotive have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is ...

Gas turbine train A gas turbine locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a gas turbine. Several types of gas turbine locomotive have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is conveyed to the driving w ...

SNCF The Société nationale des chemins de fer français (; abbreviated as SNCF ; French for "National society of French railroads") is France's national state-owned railway company. Founded in 1938, it operates the country's national rail traffi ...

British Rail APT-E The APT-E, for Advanced Passenger Train Experimental, was the prototype Advanced Passenger Train tilting train unit. It was powered by gas turbines, the only multiple unit so powered that was used by British Rail. The APT-E consisted of two ...

External links

45 ans de TGV
{{High-speed rail experimental High-speed trains of France Land speed record rail vehicles

001 001, O01, or OO1 may refer to: *1 (number), a number, a numeral *001, fictional British agent, see 00 Agent *001, former emergency telephone number for the Norwegian fire brigade (until 1986) *AM-RB 001, the code-name for the Aston Martin Valkyrie ...

Gas turbine multiple units of France Gas turbine multiple units with locomotive-like power cars Experimental and prototype high-speed trains