In the graveyard of rusting Soviet 'Turbo Train' with jet engine that could reach 350 km/h and was intended to be the future

THE dreams of Soviet engineers about a turbo train had faded, but the vision of the future rotted in the factory yard for years to come.

Engineers once thought we'd be able to commute in the mornings in jet-powered trains like the SVL, with its elegant, rounded appearance and two enormous engines attached to the roof.

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Instead, the futuristic-looking locomotive now sits slowly disintegrating on a factory site in Kalininsky, St. Petersburg.

The 50-ton jet-powered train could reportedly reach speeds of around 300 km/h as it raced along the jet-powered tracks.

But it was believed that with the right track, the 28-metre-long train car could have reached a speed of more than 350 km/h.

In the 1960s, Soviet passenger trains traveled at an average speed of about 40 miles per hour.

And once the US launched its ambitious project of a jet-powered train, the USSR could not fall behind the competition.

The American M-497 Black Beetle was built in 1966 and reached speeds of 300 km/h.

Soviet engineers were then tasked with building an experimental train that could rival the American model.

The experimental train was built in 1970 by researchers at Kalinin Carriage Works.

Designers took a standard train car and attached to its roof a pair of engines from a Yak-40 passenger plane.

The superfast train has reportedly performed well in tests, reaching speeds of 200 mph.

And this was much faster than other contemporary high-speed trains, such as the original Japanese bullet train, the Shinkansen.

Russia's turbo train – officially called the High Speed ​​Laboratory Car – was unveiled in October 1970.

It would be conducted on an experimental test track under the control of engineer Mikhail Nepryaev and aircraft mechanic Alexei Lozov.

Five years of testing followed, with the superspeed train even running on some public stretches of track as it roared along.

The All-Union Research Institute of Carriage Building boasted that the train could have reached speeds of up to 360 km/h.

And they hoped that their train could power a new generation of railroads that crossed the Soviet Union.

But as the communist bloc slowly began to eat itself, such ambitious plans were shelved and shelved.

The SVL stood silent and deserted at a station near Moscow.

It started to rust away and take it with it Russia's dreams of a high-speed rail network with jet propulsion.

There were problems with the train's stability at high speed, but the designers were confident they could overcome this.

The commercial use of the experimental train was also hampered by the state of the Soviet railways, which were ill-equipped to achieve a running speed of more than 80 mph (130 km/h).

And there were also problems with the noise of the roaring fighter jets flying through densely populated areas.

The solutions to these problems were impractical or expensive, leading to the abandonment of the project.

The jet train dreams died and soon the rusting wreck was moved to the factory grounds in St. Petersburg.

However, after lying in pieces for decades, the train was finally recovered and given a suitable monument.

The front was chopped off and repainted and installed on a plinth outside the Tver Carriage Works.

The American jet-powered train was also short-lived: the RDC-3 was scrapped in 1984.

But the US eventually managed to revolutionize the rail industry with the even more impressive LIMRV, built in the 1970s, which eventually reached speeds of 410 km/h.

It set the world speed record for vehicles traveling on conventional rails.

The future however, seems to have gone beyond the dreams of jet trains.

And instead, designers look to “maglev” technology as Elon Musk's plan for the Hyperloop.

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