It was in 1971, fifty years ago, when I had my first meeting with Mr. Alejandro Goicoechea Omar.
This great Military Armament and Construction Engineer, number one in his class, born in Elorrio (Vizcaya) in 1895, was 76 years old, when he crossed paths with me, a 27-year-old young man, who had finished his training in composites, at the Centro European Research and Development in Chambery of the Saint Gobain Company. He had attended a conference on composites in Paris, in which a composite vehicle was shown, circulating on concrete tracks, with pneumatic wheels and it was made up of four “vertebrae”, joined and articulated among themselves. This convoy, broke with everything known until then: it presented Vertebration – Pneumatic rolling – Undertaking – Traction on each wheel – Ultralighting.
The entire convoy was made of composite. After the astonishment it produced among those attending the congress, I observed that despite being manufactured in France, specifically in the Brisonneau et Lotz workshops, the invention was Spanish.
The “train” was circulating in tests in a town – Santa Cruz de Campezo (Álava) and in it several people were seen accompanied by the Civil Guard. On my return to Spain, I had the intuition to contact and locate Mr. Alejandro Goicoechea. Why did I do it? Because he had the conviction that if there was a Spanish engineer capable of innovating to such a high degree, it could not be other than Mr. Alejandro Goicoechea.
The one who writes this remembers that in August 1950, being a seven-year-old boy, he asked his parents to bring him closer to Zumárraga, next to where he spent the summer, to see the new TALGO train circulate. When he saw it, he was amazed to see that snake, small, metallic, gray with a reddish band, being dragged by a formidable Krauss Maffei locomotive. It is an indelible memory. D. Alejandro receives me at his office in C / Rodríguez de San Pedro in Madrid and he is surprised by my interest. I comment to him that I wish the manufacture of this “Vertebrate train” to be in Spain.
After thinking about it, he tells me: I challenge him. I must make a new convoy, more demanding than the previous one in terms of design, in composite and you have a little over a year to execute it. I will provide you with the plans. Otherwise, I will do it in France. I accept the challenge and manage to form a formidable technical team, made up of the Civil Engineers Julio de Castro Núñez and Carballedo and the Industrial Engineer Delfín Rodríguez Villanueva.
I would take the composite theme. A ship was searched in Torrejón de Ardoz and the four boxes or vertebrae were built, in addition to the head and tail ends, for the government of the convoy. Since Don Alejandro began his railway career in the 1920s, two ideas have always pursued him. Elimination of weight and non-derailing rolling.
I wanted to finish off George Stephenson’s tab wheel. He considered it a huge risk. Both requirements were widely met on the Vertebrate Train.
The first, the boxes or vertebrae, were self-supporting, made of “sandwich” composite, which made them extraordinarily light. It is the best compromise between stiffness and weight. No other material can compete with the sandwich.
The second, the pneumatic rolling framed between the concrete tracks, in addition to providing maximum comfort, non-deflability, in addition to practically canceling the tipping torque, as the wheels were located in the vehicle’s ground plane.
The Vertebrate Train circulated during the years 1974/1975 on the Avenida Marítima in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. Its maximum speed, achieved by its 12 electric motors, located in the hubs of the 12 tires corresponding to the six vertebrae, were capable of reaching 130 km / h. with an acceleration of 1.1 m / sec.2, although due to the short route (1,800 m), it was limited to 105 km / h. Without any doubt, Mr. Alejandro was ahead of his time in the design, applied technology and use of new materials, COMPOSITES.
