The Official Rapido APT-E Thread

[JSpencer]

Is the model available separately too? In fact, a model and a book without the box would be about right.

I am sure that will appear eventually. Meanwhile you can pop round and see mine run, now that I have moved home and have a railway room (give me a few weeks to set the layout up first). ;-)

[Derekstuart]

I wonder how many APT-E models will end up running on layouts that are even based upon the type of route that it would ever have travelled over. I have just (finally) started building baseboards for a little test layout ahead of starting Whitby and it is a single track, light weight branch over the Yorkshire Moors, with 1:52 gradient and a 10 chain curve- just what the APT was designed for.

[John ks]

I wonder how many APT-E models will end up running on layouts that are even based upon the type of route that it would ever have travelled over. I have just (finally) started building baseboards for a little test layout ahead of starting Whitby and it is a single track, light weight branch over the Yorkshire Moors, with 1:52 gradient and a 10 chain curve- just what the APT was designed for.

 

I know of at least 1 that is running on a loosely based US layout. By US I mean the country not Un Serviceable

Although in my defence the loop it will usually run on is  under catenary mostly meant for BR prototypes and any thing I like that has a pantograph.(GG1,Bipolar,Little Joe, Krokodil, TGV ,ICE, Bullet train, Acela, ETC)

 

John

[JSpencer]

I wonder how many APT-E models will end up running on layouts that are even based upon the type of route that it would ever have travelled over. I have just (finally) started building baseboards for a little test layout ahead of starting Whitby and it is a single track, light weight branch over the Yorkshire Moors, with 1:52 gradient and a 10 chain curve- just what the APT was designed for.

 

Probably very few indeed. I suspect many will never ever see a layout. When it does, many will not have ballast, others will be highly detailed fictive places, some will be the Hornby style, and others a simple loop of track on the carpet (I am guilty of doing the latter to test it). 

 

My big layout, detailed though it is, is supposed to represent a place that could fit somewhere just outside London. However it is not typical of any region and is technically wrong for any region. But it does allow me to run any region and get away with it.

Then I have the small Horrid Hill DCC test layout. The place exists, it had a small horse drawn tram a 100 years go. But the rest, a small southern station and siding is fictive (the APT-E won't fit on it anyway).

Next will be Sheffield Park. This will be correct (except for the inclusion of a 3rd rail - but that is under consideration on the real railway) but hardly a place the APT-E ever ran nor likely to turn up.

 

Yes it is strange how we fuss over some of the most detailed models ever, to then run them on something that would never have happened. But I guess our interest is primarily the trains themselves, and the environment they ran in is secondary to that.

[srihaggis]

Mine has visited 2 different layouts so far; one being one based on a fictional Scottish and the other being prototypical GCR, none of which are where APT-E has been in reality.

 

The layout I'm building, APT-E never ran/went through the location, although it did run under power on 2 separate lines nearby to where I am modelling approx. 3.82mi & 3.79mi away, one being Old Dalby & the other being the Midland Main Line, so I'm using modellers licence. I was going to originally model a bit of MML but there was no operating potential for my area of interests that I could fit into the space I had available; I could have done just a bit of double-track mainline but I feel there ought to be a bit more to 'play with'.

[Pete the Elaner]

Mine is London WCML (well it will be when I get some scenery on it) so would be good for the P train...

...except I am building a 1930s version now then an updated one later.

[Derekstuart]

I suppose that subject to physical restrictions it could have gone anywhere- that doesn't mean to say it did, but could have.

 

Plenty of "what ifs" in modelling. What if the RTC were interested to know how APT-E would perform much as HSTs did on Inverness to Plymouth or similar. What if the RTC had been asked to assess running faster trains across East Anglia? In days gone by it was not un-common to find long distance expresses either being made up of parts of trains coming from secondary services (not possible for a fixed unit of course). Whitby for example used to have a direct link to London Kings Cross- it was really just using the main line stock for a service terminating at York and otherwise would have cluttered up sidings. If the line had survived fully it is likely that HSTs would have had a summer Saturday presence- so why not APTs?

 

Failing that, if anyone moans about you using an APT improperly you could always resort to "*** off and mind your own".

[Mr_Tilt]

BR weren't too keen on E-Train running under the wires as it was thought the high temperatures of the turbine exhausts wouldn't do the overhead any good, and I'm pretty sure we never did so that anywhere during our somewhat restricted travels.

 

I'm not quite sure how they'd have handled a 'production' turbine version in that sort of situation, it may have been possible to cool the exhausts with greater application of technology though.

 

When we rook the train to the NRM in 1976 we had to stop in the centre road at York Station for quite a while, and the word must have got around as the crowds magnified themselves by the minute, including people standing on the bridge immediately above PC1! It was noticeable that the ones in the middle didn't stay there very long, and the Field Trials guys on board asked if we could shut down PC1's turbines, and as we were worried about running short of fuel anyway we shut down all except one, but kept PC2 running on all five. I bet the spectator's feet must have been getting a trifle warm! 

[Derekstuart]

I read somewhere that the second man was supposed to lean out of the cab window and waft them with his cap.

 

I'm not quite sure how they'd have handled a 'production' turbine version in that sort of situation, it may have been possible to cool the exhausts with greater application of technology though.

 

Are there any aircraft that have a similar sound? I have listened to youtube videos of the model but haven't yet listened to mine on the basis that after 3 months I still haven't worked out how to get the box apart without 4 pairs of hands. Anyway, as good as the sound might be it will never really give a true feeling of what the real one sounded like.

EDIT: Anyone know the security code for Shildon's alarm? We could go in one night and see if we could start it. I can get some jet fuel from our local airbase.

[JSpencer]

I read somewhere that the second man was supposed to lean out of the cab window and waft them with his cap.

 

 

 

Are there any aircraft that have a similar sound? I have listened to youtube videos of the model but haven't yet listened to mine on the basis that after 3 months I still haven't worked out how to get the box apart without 4 pairs of hands. Anyway, as good as the sound might be it will never really give a true feeling of what the real one sounded like.

EDIT: Anyone know the security code for Shildon's alarm? We could go in one night and see if we could start it. I can get some jet fuel from our local airbase.

The amazing thing is, no one has ever done an un boxing video of this model yet. Normally the pop up within a few days of a new release. Guess I'll have to do one....

[Derekstuart]

Do I click:
- Informative/useful

- Thanks

- Like

- Friendly/ supportive

- Funny

The amazing thing is, no one has ever done an un boxing video of this model yet. Normally the pop up within a few days of a new release. Guess I'll have to do one....

[Removed a/c]

IC82 has done one too. 

[Mr_Tilt]

 

Are there any aircraft that have a similar sound? I have listened to youtube videos of the model but haven't yet listened to mine on the basis that after 3 months I still haven't worked out how to get the box apart without 4 pairs of hands. Anyway, as good as the sound might be it will never really give a true feeling of what the real one sounded like.

 

EDIT: Anyone know the security code for Shildon's alarm? We could go in one night and see if we could start it. I can get some jet fuel from our local airbase.

 

 

An early model, non-turbofan, Boeing 707 sounds rather like E-Train so long as it's not at full throttle for take-off.

 

We've actually got one turbine on PC2 to turn-over in the past, but luckily the igniter circuit wasn't working or we'd have probably set off the entire fire alarm system at Shildon!

 

Oddly it was the same turbine that caused us all the trouble on the last day of High Speed Tests on the WR, the one that Ray Coleman controlled with his Vero board controller during the final 152.3 mph run. 

[Derekstuart]

A former colleague used to make "model" turbines and he brought in one about half the size of a shoe box, not much larger than the turbo on my car.

 

"won't do much" I said, foolishly... You can see similar models on you tube where people have made that mistake. One even blew someone off his feet, so yes I can see that starting up a large turbine that hasn't run in decades, whilst inside a museum could be entirely problematic. Fun though.

[Pete the Elaner]

I read somewhere that the second man was supposed to lean out of the cab window and waft them with his cap.

 

 

Are there any aircraft that have a similar sound? I have listened to youtube videos of the model but haven't yet listened to mine on the basis that after 3 months I still haven't worked out how to get the box apart without 4 pairs of hands. Anyway, as good as the sound might be it will never really give a true feeling of what the real one sounded like.

 

EDIT: Anyone know the security code for Shildon's alarm? We could go in one night and see if we could start it. I can get some jet fuel from our local airbase.

 

I thought it ran on Diesel fuel but shouldn't be called a 'Diesel Engine' because this refers to an internal combustion type?

[MarkSG]

I thought it ran on Diesel fuel but shouldn't be called a 'Diesel Engine' because this refers to an internal combustion type?

 

A Diesel engine is a form of piston engine (specifically,a  compression-ignition engine), yes, so you're right that it's incorrect to call the APT-E a Diesel.

 

Diesel fuel is very similar to jet fuel and gas turbine fuel, to the extent that they are, within the tolerance limits of the various different engines, interchangeable. You can run a Diesel engine on jet fuel with no problems, although the converse is less true as jet engines have a much lower tolerance.

[Mr_Tilt]

The Leyland gas turbine was designed as a multi-fuel engine, but the units we had on E-Train were optimised to run on standard BR diesel fuel. Only small changes to the fuel control units would have been required to let it run on paraffin or JET-A1 aviation fuel though.

[newbryford]

The Leyland gas turbine was designed as a multi-fuel engine, but the units we had on E-Train were optimised to run on standard BR diesel fuel. Only small changes to the fuel control units would have been required to let it run on paraffin or JET-A1 aviation fuel though.

 

It's been claimed that gas turbines could be run on pulverised coal as a fuel.  http://www.google.co.uk/patents/US4592199

So in theory, the APT-E could've been coal fired....................

 

Cheers,

Mick

Edited September 2, 2016 by newbryford

[Derekstuart]

Mick,

 

What we now call the Diesel engine pre-dates Dr Diesel by some 20 years. The initial internal combustion engine was designed by Dr N Otto (some sources suggest that he was inspired by old British Army cannons left over from the defeat of Napoleon some decades earlier, but there is little evidence) which used gun powder in a cylinder, much as the muskets, rifles and cannons did. Around 1876 he found a way to safely explode and control gases and thus developed a gas powered engine some 120 years before such things became fashionable.

 

Daimler developed his petrol engine around 1884.

 

However, it was the work by the British inventor Akroyd-Stuart (patents granted 1885,86,87,88,89,90) on his self ignition "hot bulb" engine that inspired Dr Diesel- six years later- to invent what we now call the diesel engine. His initial plan was a 50/50 mix of oil and coal dust, but later went over to 100% oil (one assumes that coal powder was quite damaging to pistons and valves).

 

Source: BTC/BR Diesel Traction Manual for Enginemen, 1962.  (except the reference to Napoleonic war- this is widespread speculation but it does not appear in the book).

[Colin_McLeod]

.....on the basis that after 3 months I still haven't worked out how to get the box apart without 4 pairs of hands.

Use a Stanley knife. It comes apart quite easily.

 

Hat coat running fast.

[Mr_Tilt]

It's been claimed that gas turbines could be run on pulverised coal as a fuel.  http://www.google.co.uk/patents/US4592199

So in theory, the APT-E could've been coal fired....................

 

 

Don't you start! 

 

We get enough of that approach from the 'support staff' at Shildon! I've suggested that we install coal bunkers on either side of the walkway through the old APU bay in PC2, and maybe install a dummy firehole hatch in the door into the Auxiliary Bay to appease them................. 

[jjb1970]

Diesel engines in the true sense are engines based on the Diesel cycle, which is a theoretical ideal thermodynamic cycle. There are quite a number of thermodynamic cycles such as Otto, Miller and Stirling. They can be shown simply on a P-V diagram but to most people they probably all just look like bananas. A Disel engine can use spark ignition and a wide range of fuels including any of the middle distillate oils, residual oil, methane gas and liquefied petroleum gas. Diesel himself saw potential in fluidised coal. Many gas "Diesel" engines are Otto engines and many big marine engines are dual cycle or Miller cycle engines. For enthusiasts of Diesel engines you can see Rudolf's first engine in the MAN museum in Augsburg and they still run it up.

Gas turbines utilise an open thermodynamic cycle and are very different. Gas turbines are very fuel tolerant and if set up appropriately can combust just about any fuel. Modern GT engines can also be efficient.

[jjb1970]

 

For those interested, a diesel engine in strict terms is one modelled on this thermal cycle.

 

The Otto cycle is below.

 

 

 

[Derekstuart]

JJB1970 if RMW was around in the days of your great grandfather he'd have been writing:

 

P = ((HQ1 * AH1)/ AAH)*AOHWU

 

Where P is power, HQ1 is hay quantity, AH1 is amount of horses, AAH is average age of horse and AOHWU is aggression of horse whip user.

[Derekstuart]

JJB, on a more serious point (if a little O/T) do you know much about the Bourke engine? There seems to be claim and counter claim about its power out to fuel input ratio. Sounds good to me, but no one seems to be able to replicate it under close inspection.