The formerly admirable jet train is now a memorial (Picture: tihomirov.su)
In a factory yard full of rusting trains in Kalininsky, St Petersburg, the remnants of the Soviet Union’s futuristic ‘jet train’ sat abandoned for decades.
Created with the hopes of becoming a new high-speed transport option for the country – who at the time had trains travelling only 40mph – the ‘jet train’ has now been transformed into a memorial to the Soviet era engineering marvel.
Firstly in 1966, an engineer in the United States named Don Wetzel was given the challenge of making a safer, less expensive, and most importantly, faster train.
His solution was to strap jet engines on top of the train roof.
He told GE Reports: ‘My wife is a commercial artist and she did the streamlining design.
‘The original design had the jet engines on the rear end of the car, but we changed it to the forward end.
‘She said that the car looked a lot better with the engines on the front. There’s an old pilot legend that if an airplane looks good, it usually flies good.
‘We felt that if the jet train looked good, it would run good.’
The jet train was advertised throughout Russia (Picture: Alamy)
For decades, the train was unused in the yard (Picture: tihomirov.su)
The train hit Soviet railways in 1972 (Picture: Getty)
After seeing the jet-powered train in America, Soviet engineers scrambled to find their own alternative and came up with the experimental train in 1970.
The Soviet engineers took a normal train car and put a pair of plane engines on the roof of it, just as Wetzel did.
The train reportedly fared well in tests, reaching speeds of up to 200mph, and was put on the tracks for a few years.
But as the Soviet Union began to crumble, the plans for a turbo train were put to the side and the train was put in the factory yard of Kalininsky.
The train reportedly had issues with stability, noise complaints from residents about the loud engines, and a high running cost due to the jet fuel needed to power it.
But after decades of sitting unused, the train has now been put on a plinth outside of the Tver Carriage Works just north of Moscow.
Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.