time were getting out of the passenger business as quickly as possible.
   To inject new life into a dormant market, Budd introduced the SPV 2000 in 1978. This was the RDC concept installed in an AMFLEET car body with 20% more power, air/coil suspension and a top speed of 120 mph. Unfortunately, a major marketing effort including barnstorming trips throughout the U.S. failed to excite enthusiasm for this million dollar plus vehicle and only 24 were sold. Reliability never came close to that of the venerable RDC and the program died an early death.
   In the mid sixties, the Long Island Rail Road's ongoing search for seamless operation from electrified to non-electrified territory led to a turbine-electric drive installed in the Budd Pioneer prototype car. The results on the Long Island were encouraging enough to generate an UMTA (FTA) demonstration grant which funded 4 cars (2 married pairs) from Garrett and 4 from General Electric.
   The demonstration cars were placed in revenue service on the Oyster Bay Branch of the Long Island RR and ran there for nine months during 1976 and 1977. The Garrett turbines overall performance was better than the ST6K.  The Garrett chopper drive showed growing pains while the SCM-4 drive on the GE cars worked well. As a result of these mixed results, rising fuel costs and changes in MTA management, the experiment was abandoned. A new look at the concept using modern turbine technology might be justified in view of the turbine's light weight and clean exhaust and the fact that the search for true seamless operation continues.
   The table above shows the status of the remaining DMU's. All of the active RDC's have been upgraded to Cummins diesels and two of the VIA RDC's are equipped with Voith transmissions. The SPV 2000 cars have all left service except for the FRA Track Inspection Car.
   Now that you know where we have been and where we are today, read on to learn what the workshop developed.

While New York State currently has no DMU's, it has a great interest in advancing non-electric rail technology. In the Empire Corridor, it has the only non-electric trains which run in excess of 100 mph on a regular basis. This was accomplished in a partnership with Amtrak in the early 70's where NYS invested $ 150 million in upgrading track and Amtrak provided modern, turbine powered, American built RTL equipment.
   The experience in this corridor has shown a strong positive relationship between higher speeds and increased ridership. As average travel time decreased 29% ridership increased by 36%. Turbine power offers light weight which in turn provides high speed at low cost. The Transportation Research Board Report, "In Search of Speed," showed capital costs/minute saved of $632 million compared to $2,797 million for conventional electrification and $3,689 million for 150 mph+ high speed rail.
   Turbines also offer a clean air solution to high speed rail as can be seen in the chart comparing emissions in the Albany-NYC service for the recently upgraded RTL II Turboliner, conventional diesel electric trains and electric service. The RTL II has been so favorably accepted that NYS has proposed a program to upgrade the remaining six RTL Turboliners.

May 1996