Rail Speed Record

Side A: In 1966 the New York Central Railroad Company (A.E. Perlman, President) proposed a test of existing rail passenger equipment to determine the feasibility of operating high-speed passenger service between cities up to 300 miles apart. The site chosen for the test was near Bryan, Ohio on the longest multiple track straight railroad line in the world. This sixty-seven mile straight trackage from Toledo, Ohio to Butler, Indiana was originally constructed by the Northern Indiana Railroad Company of Ohio incorporated March 3, 1851. On July 23, 1966 the New York Central Technical Research Department ran their Budd RDC-3 passenger car number M-497 fully instrumented for stress analysis, and propelled by two roof-mounted jet aircraft engines. The speed of 183.85 miles per hour was attained, the highest recorded on a railroad in North America at that time and to this day. Side B: Same