Mr_Tilt

That's good to know, thanks Andy. 👍

Yes, the bogies were designed to take even P4 wheelsets, but the problem is where does one get them? The E-Train has unusually small diameter wheels compared to conventional stock. I have yet to investigate if it's actually possible to re-gauge the existing 00 gauge wheelsets by sliding them along the axles, but when I get home early next week I'll be doing just that.

Further to the above, the Pendon guys came up with an even better idea! They suggest we run an E-Train model across their Vale of the White Horse layout on the nearest weekend to the 50th anniversary of E-Train's Speed Record run on August 10th 2025! That gives us almost 18 months to produce an EM gauge E-Train. Of course it'll be at scale speed too. 🙂

Now here's an opportunity to 'show the E-Train flag'. The Pendon Museum want to run demos of more modern trains through their amazing Vale of the White Horse scene as the scenery has hardly changed in the last 100 years or so. One of the periods they want to show is from 1971-1985, and of course E-Train did the High Speed runs in August 1975. The only problem is their track is EM gauge, and although I know the E-Train model is designed to take up to P4 gauge wheelsets I don't know anyone who has done it. They want to do these demos in June next year, so does anyone have their E-Train converted to EM? If not I may try and swap the wheelsets of mine around, but I haven't the FAINTEST idea what's available on that front as the wheels are so small compared to many other vehicles.

I used a Minitrix Class 33 motor/bogie on that one I did waaaay back Paul. There are bound to be better ones available now, but I think the wheelbase of a 33 is about right.

Having the customer do your development work is a well worn technique, often used in the motor industry and usually driven by the bean counters, who just don't understand engineering in any way, shape or form. Don't ask me how I know this................. 😒

They did run as a 14 car set at least once, so that's enough to make it 'accurate'.

It ought to handle the upslope better, if only because it'll be on the outer track I presume, and therefore a larger radius curve.

On the anniversary front, it's 51 years today that E-Train made its first run on the main line. I can clearly remember lying on the floor of the centre joint module with my head hung through a hole watching the wheelsets to make sure they didn't start hunting. I was thinking 'Is THIS what I signed up for in 1969???' Only to be blacked by ASLEF immediately of course. 😒

Dear oh dear, when will they ever learn. The tilt system was NOT 'computerised', it was wholly analogue with no digital bits in it anywhere. (sigh)

There was an Open University programme, which they filmed mostly in the APD Lab and the RTC Yard, which covered hunting, and it had a demo of a coned wheelset going down an incline, both straight and curved, and that showed how hunting develops all too clearly. My right forefinger features in the prog, being shown pressing the Emergency Stop button for the Roller Rig. 🙂

It'd be difficult to show the differences in the wheel profiles as they're only very slightly different to a normal coned wheel, but it's those tiny differences that are important. In general terms Alan Wickens found that making a wheel the same profile as it wore to after some running made it more stable, and wasn't likely to hunt, thus the generic title of a 'worn wheel profile'. The suspension differences generally followed the 'soft, long travel primary springs and hard dampers' ideas put forward by Colin Chapman, the Lotus Cars boss. It works just as well on railways as it does on cars apparently. That's difficult to see as well, so it'd be tough to make a display that shows either of the two prime advances in that field. 😒 I should say that some people can actually see the differences in the wheel profile, Alan Wickens being one of course. While we were making a TV documentary on the APT a few years ago he and I walked past the Stirling Single in the museum and I asked him how did the Single's wheel profile stack up for high speed running, and he said 'Terrible! I'm amazed it could travel so fast and remain stable.' 🙂

The APT-E, along with HSFV-1, which is also in the Locomotion museum, is probably the most important modern day exhibit in any UK railway museum. That may sound a little over-the-top, but I believe it's true, and it's nothing to do with the turbines or the tilt system etc. THE important thing about the APT-E is the wheel/rail technology, the shape of the wheel profile and the suspension springs, dampers and general configuration. That's what made it stable at 150 mph. and BR made that technology freely available world wide. Every high speed train in the world, except perhaps for the Shin Kansen lines in Japan, uses that technology or developments of it to this day, and that includes the HST and the Pendelinos. Sadly all that is invisible to most people and it's difficult to understand too, but THAT'S why it's in the Museum.

The Locomotion Hall was designed around APT-E's length actually and for the last 19 years it's all been in there on the same road but split into two parts. There was a vast gap between TC1 and TC2 which was apparently required by the fire regulations, but that reason has been poo-poo'd recently. The Support and Conservation Group have been lobbying for many years to put it all back together in one piece with the Trailer Cars the correct way round and all vehicles properly 'coupled' so we could take the public right through the train from one end to the other. However recent 'rulings' by some parties at the NRM have prevented the public from entering the train, they won't even let US into it! Quite what all that's about is a mystery and it's difficult, if not impossible, for us to get a straight answer out of anyone at the NRM. I can only hope that sanity will prevail and we can return to the situation as was originally intended when we started preservation of the train in 2000.

Even more on E-Train, over this last week we moved it outside, split it into individual vehicles, turned TC2 the right way round and re-assembled it in 3 car form, PC1-TC2-PC2, and put it back on the same road it came from. TC1, mounted on the newly refurbished handling dollies, is sitting in front of PC2 for now, but will eventually go on its own road mounted on the SA and E1T bogies with the 3 car set alongside it. Or I think that's what's going to happen anyway, communications with the higher management at the NRM is never easy.......😒

I had some of them too................

That DOES look good in the Inter City scheme, it really works with the E-Train shape. 👍

A pity the rest of the media didn't take the same attitude as the Beeb did there. Well spotted, I've never seen that before. 👍

Class 33 bogies were the ones I used on my scratchbuilt N gauge E-Train that you've seen before Paul. It was the old Minitrix one in my case, but there are better ones about these days.

Not really, no. 'Onslaught' was obtained to test the APT-P Power Car BP-17a bogie and transmission, but without a working tilt system as it would surely have been out of gauge when tilted. The idea was to retain the existing diesel hydraulic setup at one end and install an APT-P traction motor, cardan shaft and bogie at the other with a fixed pantograph to collect the current. It never happened and no work was ever done on '832', she just sat in the RTC Yard until she was rescued for restoration. Shane Wilton has built a superb model of her in the intended form though, complete in RTC Red-Blue colour scheme! 👍 We did build 'Trestrol', Lab 24, to test the transmission and bogies eventually, and that COULD tilt as well, complete with an anti-tilt pantograph which wasn't live but proved the dynamics of the idea. It also tested the Mk 4 tilt pack, which was only fitted to the APT-P Power Cars, and that was above floor level, unlike the Trailer Car Mk 5 packs which were under the Trailer Car floors. Hastings, Lab 4, was obtained to test the APT-P non-articulated Trailer Car bogies, the H4Xs, later BP-12s, and the general APT-P tilt system, but it didn't use the Mk 5 packs as they hadn't been designed by then. We built two Mk 3 tilt packs that had interchangeable components such as pumps, filters, valves etc. so we could determine the best ones to use for the production Mk4 & 5 packs. It's an obscure bit of APT history but nevertheless interesting I feel.

When the project was initiated the idea was for ALL passenger trains on BR to be APTs eventually, but at that time the majority of routes weren't electrified, so the service trains would have had to have two forms of motive power. 25 Kv for the WCML, which was intended to be wholly electrified, and 'something else' for the non-electric routes. Diesels at the time were just too heavy to produce the required power/weight ratio to get the trains up to their intended 150 mph speed in a decent distance, the relatively light weight Paxman Valenta didn't exist until later. Gas turbines enabled the E-Train to run anywhere for its test programme, and yet still have a high power/weight ratio to produce the desired performance. The 1973 fuel crisis knocked all that on the head however as the poor fuel consumption of the turbines rendered them uneconomic and after that the non-electric service APTs were toast. But by then the HST programme was in full swing and effectively negated the need for a non-electric APT, even though the lack of tilt meant they could only go fast on the straights. As for the test mileage, the majority of it was done on the Midland Main Line, and the Old Dalby track was used mainly for tests which were potentially dangerous, like the fully failed tilt system tests, and for initial trails, like those to check out the 'new' E1T bogies after Rebuild 1 in 1972-3.

Mine does just that on DC. You can hear both Power Cars independently as they pass by.

What a WONDERFUL idea, well done Mr. Gray & Son! I especially like that piece of track as I was in the rear cab of the P-Train on the first run on Dec 7th 1981 going down the Lune Valley, and a very impressive ride it was too. 🙂 Of course a model of PoP-Train would work just as well, we did numerous runs up and down there back in the early 70s. And I spent much of my time on the outside of the control cabins too. 🙂

What's 'Project-Tilt' then?

For anyone in the north, I'm doing my short talk on the APT project in Darlington on this coming Saturday afternoon. It'll be at the Head of Steam Museum on Station Rd, at 1.45 pm. It should last 1.5 hrs, but they ALWAYS over run. 🙂