Something out of Buzz Lightyear's imagination, this jet-enhanced train car was tested (successfully) in the summer of 1966. This was the time when rail-road usage declined in America, as the interstate highway system completed its major routes and airlines drew increasing numbers of travelers. New York Central research team, led by Don Wetzel, was assigned a task to collect data on possible high-speed rail service and whether the tracks could handle high-speed passenger traffic.

"Wetzel and his crew adapted two General Electric J-47-19 jet engines, which had been designed as boosters for the Convair B-36 intercontinental bomber. These were mounted just above the engineer’s station at the front of the car. Wetzel’s original design had the jet engines at the rear, but this changed after his wife, making her point with some sketches on a dinner napkin, suggested that the locomotive would look better with them mounted up front. This switch also helped keep the nose of the locomotive on the tracks. The Cleveland shop fashioned a black streamlined cowling for the front of the Budd car, which was designated M-497. Workers called it the Black Beetle."

"Jet-powered Budd cars were never seriously considered for practical passenger service, and modern high-speed trains in France, Japan, England, and the United States all use conventional diesel-electric or all-electric motive power.

Wetzel and his team reused the jet engines for another research project, a high-powered snow blower for opening winter track. In tests at the Central’s Buffalo yards, the jet blower efficiently cleared the rails; it also blasted most of the ties and ballast from under them."