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The Official Rapido APT-E Thread

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No Decorum

No Decorum

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It was new technology. It’s probably impossible to say how or when or at what cost problems arising would have been solved. Sadly, it was probably near to having all its problems sorted out when it was cancelled. I’m somewhere between furious and crying when I think of it. Very sad for Mr. Tilt, his colleagues and the country.

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shreds

shreds

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How expensive would it have been to open the doors in the buffet/bar coach of the APT-P on a curve and save the country from years of pointless journalistic drivel?

 

APT-P would now be being exported worldwide, Derby would be the centre of the UK rail transport industry and we would have to address Sir Kit, possibly as 'Your 'tilt-ness'  :no:

 

Her Majesty would no doubt have said, 'Arise Sir Kit, but only to a 9 degree slant'

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Mr_Tilt

Mr_Tilt

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Found this video on YT, I don't know if it's already been posted on here, but shows E-Train in a bit of a sorry state, and our very own "Mr Tilt" and Paul Leadley is on as well.

 

Branson's Baby.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdGVFwKUx_c

 

Regards Craig.

 

With 'expert opinions' like those given by Roger Ford and Chris Green what hope have we of understanding the TRUE situation of the APT-P cancellation?  :nono:

 

I'd forgotten about that video but to my mind it's one of the best ones about APT and tilting trains in general. What it DOESN'T mention at all is the world breaking wheel/rail technology developed by Prof. Alan Wickens, even though he's actually in the vid! There's large chunks of 'E for Experimental' in there too but the edits meant they concentrated on the tilting almost to the exclusion of all else.

 

By a co-incidence I've spent all day up at Crewe doing yet another BBC programme about the APT today, and this one's going out on 'The One Show' for goodness sake, although I don't know quite when just yet. Yet again I had to emphasise the importance of Alan's wheel/rail and suspension work, but I suspect that bit will end up on the cutting room floor.

 

The Beeb guys yet again mentioned BR '.....selling the tilting technology to FIAT who then sold it back to us on the Pendolinos.....'. I've lost count of the number of times I've put people right on this, but no-one takes a blind bit of notice!  This was the eighth TV programme I've done about the project and the same things keep on coming up, but no-one seems to take notice, it's all very irritating.

 

I went up there and back by train of course, aboard a Cross Country Class 170 Turbostar to Birmingham New St. and then a London Midland Class 350 Desiro to Crewe. The 170 was pretty impressive, comfortable and quick too, but the 350 shouldn't really be on routes that long, they're really uncomfortable on main line stretches.

 

For the return trip I'd rather hoped to get aboard a Super Voyager for my first experience of an 'imported' APT-P tilt system, but even though we saw at least six of them during the day I ended up on a Pendolino! Sadly it was over 20 mins. late, but the driver REALLY tried to get the time back and we went really quickly down to Brum. After my previous experience aboard a 390 on the 30th anniversary of the P-Train's first run almost 5 years ago I wasn't expecting to be impressed, but I was. The train ran VERY well indeed, the ride was smooth with none of the inter-vehicle pitching that I'd noted on my previous run, and the tilt system was VERY good, even though it pains me to write this.  :D

 

Virgin seem to be running the 390s with the tilt fully compensating now as I didn't notice ANY lateral accelerations and I even bought a cup of coffee to test my suspicions, and there wasn't a sign of any disturbance on the surface. Most impressive.  :good:

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47137

47137

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What were the main stumbling blocks about the apt-p apart from the so called motion sickness reported by the press?

The British Government.

 

- Richard.

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Mr_Tilt

Mr_Tilt

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What has got the BBC interested in doing a segment on T1S for the APT? Is there some kind of anniversary for it about now?

 

I asked them the same question, it doesn't seem the sort of thing that would fit with the programme, but no-one knew why, weird. This summer is the 40th anniversary of E-Train going to the NRM at York, but the producer of the prog didn't even know that E-Train existed!

 

 

I wonder how many noticed the bloke more interested in looking at his coffee than drinking it  ;)

Thanks Kit  :)

 

:D  Exactly! I was in Coach 10 of an 11 coach 390 and my seat was just in front of the Train Manager's office and he was giving me some odd looks as I stood in the corridor looking at my coffee and sometimes with my eyes closed before checking my reflection in the glass end doors!

 

I told him what I was doing eventually and he was amazed that it was a) possible to 'measure' the cant deficiency without instrumentation and B) that anyone would be interested enough to try and work it out! 

 

I must recount my story of doing a similar thing aboard a Eurostar one day.  :D

 

The British Government.

 

- Richard.

 

And BR's Marketing Department. They seemed to lose interest after the Dec '81 debacle.

 

Maggie Thatcher was pro-railway when she was in opposition but as soon as she gained power all she was interested in was selling BR off. Sir Peter Parker says as much that in the 'Branson's Babies' vid.

 

One of the other guys being filmed at Crewe yesterday was from BR's Publicity Dept. at the time P-Train was running but I didn't hear what he was saying to camera and I'll be interested to hear that when the programme eventually shows. 

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dibber25

dibber25

Posted
Posted

The British Government.

 

- Richard.

Yes, the 'down side' of being Nationalised - pulled the plug on APT and gave us Pacers and cheapo electrification of the ECML, for instance. On the other hand, it saw an end to above-floor engined diesel-electric multiple units - good thing or bad? If you're jerked around by Westminster budgets - and particularly budget cuts - potentially good developments which are at the 'experimental' or 'development' stage tend to be early targets for the chop.

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lochlongside

lochlongside

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Aye with benefit of hindsight  I should of ordered 2 extra cars

 

If they did do a run of the trailer cars I think i`d be very tempted

I agree - I foolishly thought 4 car prototype equals 4 car order why reproduce a non-prototype rake - which goes to prove you can get hung up on this "prototype" approach, I subsequently contacted Shildon to see if there were any cancelled orders for trailer cars (there weren't all us old codgers - me included had hung on until delivery !!) - the 4 car unit is grossly :) over powered  and is screaming out for several trailer cars to be hung onto it to pull it down to a reasonable speed - I think I could run to a 2 or 4 car addition and I am not sure but I do not think the trailer cars were sold as limited editions possibly a further run of those may be possible if enough of us were prepared to pay up front to Shildon?

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russ p

russ p

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Yes, the 'down side' of being Nationalised - pulled the plug on APT and gave us Pacers and cheapo electrification of the ECML, for instance. On the other hand, it saw an end to above-floor engined diesel-electric multiple units - good thing or bad? If you're jerked around by Westminster budgets - and particularly budget cuts - potentially good developments which are at the 'experimental' or 'development' stage tend to be early targets for the chop.

Cheapo electrification,pacers and the APT killed were all down to ONE particular government. Since privatisation the rail industry has not experimented with anything preferring to adapt often inferior foreign products for this country

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Mr_Tilt

Mr_Tilt

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Cheapo electrification,pacers and the APT killed were all down to ONE particular government. Since privatisation the rail industry has not experimented with anything preferring to adapt often inferior foreign products for this country

 

The concentrated engineering capability that existed at the RTC in the 60s-80s has all vanished, thanks to privatisation. The engineers there have moved on to other fields where they feel more valued, just like I did. Nowadays none of the railway rolling stock suppliers do any of the deep level pure research that was carried out at the RTC and the country, maybe the whole world, has lost the capability to do such work now.

 

It's pretty all sad really, squandered on altar of 'business'.   :nono:

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Revolution Ben

Revolution Ben

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The concentrated engineering capability that existed at the RTC in the 60s-80s has all vanished, thanks to privatisation. The engineers there have moved on to other fields where they feel more valued, just like I did. Nowadays none of the railway rolling stock suppliers do any of the deep level pure research that was carried out at the RTC and the country, maybe the whole world, has lost the capability to do such work now.

 

It's pretty all sad really, squandered on altar of 'business'.   :nono:

 

Hi all,

 

While I have enormous respect for the work done at the RTC I think it would be hard to turn back the clock and recreate it.

 

Nowadays, in motoring, railways and aviation, research is done by the vehicle manufacturers, not the customers.  Their incentive is the commercial advantage they have with superior products, in a market place where the customer is free to choose.

 

cheers

 

Ben A.

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