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The APT-E project comes to life


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Make sure the tilt mechanism is unreliable just like the real thing and on it's first run get the modelling press there to mock your model! :jester:

Then give your idea to the Italians and buy it back a few years later - It would be funny if I was making this up!

 

XF

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Make sure the tilt mechanism is unreliable just like the real thing and on it's first run get the modelling press there to mock your model! :jester:

Then give your idea to the Italians and buy it back a few years later - It would be funny if I was making this up!

 

XF

You mean Vi-trains are going to come out with a model!

 

Paul R

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  • 2 weeks later...

Make sure the tilt mechanism is unreliable just like the real thing and on it's first run get the modelling press there to mock your model! :jester:

Then give your idea to the Italians and buy it back a few years later - It would be funny if I was making this up!

 

XF

 

Hmm, not sure I agree with that 'unreliable' bit, but then I wouldn't, would I? It's in the nature of the UK media to ONLY report things that tfhey can pour scorn on, espcially when they know nothing about the subject under review. In fact the APT-P tilt system was pretty reliable, but as the trains only ever ran while they were being developed it's not surprising that things went wrong sometimes. That IS what development is about after all.

 

BR didn't give the P-Train tilt system to FIAT-Ferrovia at all, the Pendelino tilt system has nothing whatseover in common with the P-Train system, other than the fact that it tilts. When BR was privatised the R&D division was radically shrunk but most remained with Railtrack as was, but some of it was sold off to ASEA who later merged with Brown-Boveri to form ABB. ABB built the Swedish X2000 trains which use APT-P tilt technology and this is also used on the Super Voyagers. Current day Pendelinos use a developed version of the original FIAT system and they were built by a competing comglomerate to ABB, Alsthom.

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  • 1 year later...

Thanks Kit, hoped you would like it!

 

This is the original test build posed next to the full length and correct scale version. The test build is looking a bit battered after my lad got hold of it when he was two, in 2010!
 
25043652450_52c2263bcb_c.jpgS2930011 by Shane Wilton, on Flickr
 
25313058256_9018a7de6b_c.jpgS2930010 by Shane Wilton, on Flickr
 
This is how it looks fully dressed. (my old APT-E model from 1997, never finished)
 
24708622274_22f7f1366c_c.jpgS2930014 by Shane Wilton, on Flickr
 
cheers
 
Shane
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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

The 'derelict faded 25' fits exactly into the RTC scene at the time we were running POP-Train.  :D

 

We probably had the largest collection of timed-out diesels in the country in the 70s, a sort of latter day Barry Yard maybe, as many of them are now running on preserved lines, the star being 832 'Onslaught'. 

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832 was intended to be a test vehicle for the APT-P's cardan shaft transmission, the plan being to keep one end with the diesel and the hydraulic transmission and the other end with a BP17 bogie, traction motors, HK brakes etc. I suppose they were going to install a pantograph on it as well and that WOULD have been different!

 

In the end it came to naught and they converted the dreaded 'Trestrol' to test the BP17 bogies instead, and made it tilt as well! I kid you not, here it is tilted under the test bridge on the Test Track.

 

PXlGKK.jpg

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Kit, we'll have a chat about the Warship proposal as its something I would model. Did any plans ever survive or even get drawn in the first place? I guess a lot of metal would have been cut away to make it work, probably why it didnt happen.

 

cheers

 

Shane

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Getting back onto the bottom rung of that nice orange ladder must have been fun!

 

Damn right it was! I had to be inside the thing to tilt it over that far, and then got out to take the pic....

 

And THEN I had to get back into bring it back level again! No fun, and I know I wouldn't be able to do it now, some 40 odd years on! 

 

I think I'm the only human being to have travelled aboard 'Trestrol' as I rode it out to Old Dalby on its first run and it was so noisy inside, what with the cardan shafts flying around, the Mk. IV Tilt Pack running and the whole shebang rattling and shaking that I recommended it be tested un-manned afterward.

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Damn right it was! I had to be inside the thing to tilt it over that far, and then got out to take the pic....

 

And THEN I had to get back into bring it back level again! No fun, and I know I wouldn't be able to do it now, some 40 odd years on! 

 

I think I'm the only human being to have travelled aboard 'Trestrol' as I rode it out to Old Dalby on its first run and it was so noisy inside, what with the cardan shafts flying around, the Mk. IV Tilt Pack running and the whole shebang rattling and shaking that I recommended it be tested un-manned afterward.

Good job really as it was tested on the WCML at over 120mph!

 

cheers

 

Shane

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Kit, we'll have a chat about the Warship proposal as its something I would model. Did any plans ever survive or even get drawn in the first place? I guess a lot of metal would have been cut away to make it work, probably why it didnt happen.

 

cheers

 

Shane

 

Sounds good Shane, that would make a great WhatIf model, specially in RTC Blue/Red. 

 

I think it was shelved because we couldn't tilt 832 due to its C1 body shape, and we needed to test the P-Train Power Car's tilt system as well as the transmission etc.

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Sounds good Shane, that would make a great WhatIf model, specially in RTC Blue/Red. 

 

I think it was shelved because we couldn't tilt 832 due to its C1 body shape, and we needed to test the P-Train Power Car's tilt system as well as the transmission etc.

 

I think it could be one of the most idiosycratic RTC vehicles ever, and thats saying something. I'll be on the look out for a Mainline Warship soon!

 

cheers

 

Shane

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832 was intended to be a test vehicle for the APT-P's cardan shaft transmission, the plan being to keep one end with the diesel and the hydraulic transmission and the other end with a BP17 bogie, traction motors, HK brakes etc. I suppose they were going to install a pantograph on it as well and that WOULD have been different!

 

In the end it came to naught and they converted the dreaded 'Trestrol' to test the BP17 bogies instead, and made it tilt as well! I kid you not, here it is tilted under the test bridge on the Test Track.

 

PXlGKK.jpg

 

 

I would love to know what happened to Lab 24, only ever seen three photos of it but there MUST be more about somewhere. No-one seems to know what happened to it however I suspect it was scrapped on site at Derby but when?

 

cheers

 

Shane

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Bit late now to suggest getting off the other side?

 

There was only a ladder on one side at the time, but another one was added later on.

 

It was luck of the draw as to which way round the train ended up on the Test Track in those days. It tended to rely upon the whims of the signalmen who controlled Syston Jct. if we turned east there or continued onto Leicester and reversed.

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