British Rail's Advanced Passenger Train, a high-speed electric tilting train designed to transform speeds on Britain's ancient, windy rail network.
Work started on its development in the 1970s: first a rig was built to test the principle of tilting; then an experimental, gas-turbine powered train was built, to test some of the engineering principles like new brake and bogie designs; and finally this, the prototype train was produced.
This was the final version before the squadron fleets would roll off the production lines, intended to enable the extraordinarily innovative engineering that had gone into the APT to be fine-tuned.
It was a triumph of technological development, and a credit to BR's shoe-string research centre. Inevitably it needed further development but, under pressure from short-term politicians, it was put into passenger service straight away.
There a series of high-profile failures made it impossible for investment to continue. The APT (which still holds the record for the fastest London-Glasgow timings, despite Virgin's embarrassingly failed attempts to wrest it from the APT with their lard-arse twenty-first century Pendolinos) -- the APT was doomed.
Today bits of the various incarnations of the APT lie scattered around various museums, slowly rotting away.
Instead, the train meant to be a stop-gap until the spread of electrification allowed the APT to operate over the whole InterCity network -- the High Speed Train -- remains in front-line service.
The HST -- sometimes called the InterCity 125 -- was the safe bet, a development of existing technology (such as the high speed diesel Deltic locomotives from English Electric that had been pounding the East Coast Mainline for many years already).
Although I shouldn't sell it short: a great deal of engineering knowledge went into it, and it's no coincidence that the quality of the ride has never been bettered (and, indeed, a lot of more recent rolling stock offers a rather less satisfactory passenger experience).
Even if the APT couldn't make it, its sister design has become firmly entrenched on Britain's railway.
Part of me is sad that the APT didn't make it, another tale of interfering politicians and under-investment.
But I'm pleased to see the HST still in front-line service, well into its fourth decade, and proposals now being floated that it will see it achieve its half-century.
7 comments:
I read once that by the time the APT went into service there was nothing wrong with it...but the incessant bad press - the idea that it caused sea-sickness etc etc caused the plug to be pulled. Also that some of the research development went into the bogie design of the 125. Any of this true.
I always took this as another example of how govts allow sensational tabloid journalism get in the way of common-sense decisions.
Not entirely true.
The hydro-kinetic brakes had a tendency to freeze up and become inneffective during very cold weather, and the tilt system was still relatively unreliable.
You're correct about all of the bad press and the roumours it cause sea sickness though. The basic design worked, but various aspects of it needed refining. Because they chose to put it into passenger service before it was really ready, the faileurs were very public and its image was ruined. This combined with the sucesss of the HST led them to pull the plug. Ironically much of the design was re-used in the class 91 and Mk4 sets, as well as pendolinos.
Thanks Niall. btw there should have been a question mark at the end of my paragraph.
I didn't know about the brakes freezing but hey, 40 years on and everything STILL falls apart in the cold. Didn't the channel tunnel's brakes break down this winter due to condensation freezing or something like that...? Then of course the wrong sort of snow and the perennial chart favourite - frozen points. xD
Lucky people who still are served by InterCity 125 HSTs should pity us poor folk who have to ride in Pendolinos and Super Voyagers: cramped interiors designed for pixie-sized people, seats not aligned with windows, all facing one way like a bus and no room even to open a tabloid - and on a Super Voyager at certain times of day the second carriage (with two inward facing seats and tables each side of the aisle) is merely draped with antimacassars and a full first-class fare demanded even though no 'at seat goodies' are offered whatsoever. I'd love to see Branson's face if he'd paid his own money to ride in one... daylight robbery. Rant over, thanks LeDuc!
The main weakness of HST to my mind was the use of Paxman Valenta motors; which were and are really for marine use, and rather filthy in operation, not to mention anything else.
Diesel is inherently filthy, but the Paxman Valentas did rather well for three decades -- although by the end of that period the HSTs were being used less as high-speed long-haul machines and more as high-speed inter-urbans (London-Bristol journey times have got longer as each new timetable has been issued and as more intermediate stops have been inserted, turning them into Southern-Railway express commuter-type operations).
The downside of this approach is that diesels like to be run continuously at one speed: but now the HSTs are constantly accelerating and braking. They weren't designed to do that, and electrification of, especially, London-Bristol can't come soon enough.
Although I suspect that it might slip behind electrification of the Midland Mainline instead, now that IEP is dying and the whole complex cascade (particularly from Thameslink) on which the GWML electrification business case depended is unravelling.
I didn't realise the MML electrification was back on the cards!?
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