Talk:Advanced Passenger Train

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I seem to recall that the APT tried to use an experimental water-brake system which was highly unreliable, and one of the reasons for its failiure. I definately recall seeing the APT broken down at Rugby station on several occasions. Shouldn't something be said about this on the article. G-Man 19:51, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yes! It had hydraulic brakes but used environmentally friendly water rather than oil, which then froze. The tilting system also broke down, and the tilt equation meant that ppl on the first run over shap with tilt were violently ill as (1) they were appearing to turn and not feeling it at all, and (2) I think they were vibration problems. Dunc_Harris|☺ 19:55, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Though I've heard stories that a good deal of the early "motion sickness" reports were thanks to the members of the press downing large quantities of the complimentary alcohol on the inaugural run ... —Morven 20:45, Sep 14, 2004 (UTC)
I travelled on the first run, Glasgow to London, and I'm not Press so I bought my own alchohol and my own ticket. The attendant in the buffet complained of motion sickness but as the bar was orientered along the carriage she was facing the window all the time. So I think the problem was seeing the horizon moving violently over Shap (I was in the bar at Shap); and I'm not aware of any vibration, the tea / coffee cups on the carriage tables did not move about, only the liquid level. The train failed on the return journey, the brakes froze; not the first run. Over the next two days, some of the carriages lost their tilt capability and they therefore had to be locked in the vertical position. People siting in one of these carriages probably suffered the problems listed above. Pyrotec 15:46, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

The article says:

The trains were quietly reintroduced into service in the summer of 1982, and ran regularly, the problems having been corrected, but the political and managerial will to continue the project and build the projected APT-S production vehicles had evaporated.

Is there any reference for the claim that the problems were corrected. From what I recall it had serious problems with reliabillity, especially from its brakes. I remember seeing it broken down in sidings at Rugby station on several occasions. G-Man 19:43, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

PS, note to self, one of these days I'll get to Crewe and take a photo of the remaining APT.
Sorry to split hairs, the words you refer to are not mine. The problems with the APT-P, as expressed by the media, was its lack of reliablity, especially when compared against the HST. The inital planned passenger service was one ATP-P to make three runs per week: Glasgow, London, Glasgow per day. To acheive that they had three APT-P's: one in service, one reserve and one scheduled for workshop overhauls, etc (see Williams page 83).
If the "symptons" were failures of the (hydrokinetic) brakes and the tilt mechanisms then BR appeared to have solved them. However Dec 1981 was very cold; and the reintroduced APT-P's did not survive in revenue service to be used the following winter, so I don't know if they solved the problem of "Cold winters". P.S. there were two sets of brakes, hydrokinetic at high speed and friction at slow speeds. There's a whole chapter (Ch. 9) in Williams as to whether the APT-P project was a success or not; he suggests that to get full value from an APT-S fleet the WCML signals needed to be upgraded and that was never budgetted for. However, BR management get's most of the blame, so the statement about lack of managment will is correct, there never were any APT-S's in BR's time. Could the "broken down" APT-P at Rugby be the standby one?
P.S. I've never worked for the railways so I'm not trying to defend them. I travelled on the first (successful) run to London, then Woolwich, and I used to see a APT-P parked at Glasgow's Shields Road Depot. For me, the journery by APT-P from Glasgow to Woolwich (via change of trains) was so more civilised than the Shuttle to Heathrow and the dreadfull tube to Charing Cross. Pyrotec 21:38, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Reversion

I reverted User:Gothicform's recent addition to this article. The removals were the following:

This was of course realised by the Thatcher government who committed to road transport rather than rail travel were determined to try and kill the project if at all possible, deliberately setting it to fall on it's launch.

This is highly POV and not, I believe, wholly accurate. The Thatcher government was rather anti-railway, to be sure - mostly because of their general anti-union, anti-public sector attitude. But I think even (rational) opponents of Thatcher can't show that the APT was deliberately sabotaged. The APT's failures were shown as terminal rather than simply teething troubles, and this was definitely a partisan act, but it's stretching the point here.

although it later turned out this was more due to drunken journalists than anything else - the effect was such though that it became an urban myth that the APT made people vomit

Possibly true, and I wouldn't necessarily disagree with this, so if you want to re-add it that's fine, but I think we should find a cite or two.

as replacements for the 125s when they had a broken set

Um, no. The 125s were diesel-powered ECML trains. The APT, being electric, could not substitute for a 125 even if it wanted to, and they served on the west coast main line anyway. —Morven 11:24, Jan 8, 2005 (UTC)


It wasn't sabotaged by the government but by reactionary thinking inside the railway hierarchy. Not the first time it has happened. I've reworked the page a bit, but some of the external links are duff, so I've got to come back.Chevin 18:33, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

I've taken out the bit about "The French approached the pantograph problem" because to cover the subject properly (i.e. EMU's on 25 kV AC) would be a bit complicated Chevin 19:38, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

I've added a book reference. The problems appear to be a combination of those discussed above: the Government was unwilling to invest sufficient money into the project (Telegraph magazine said BR paid half and DoT paid half the development costs); and many of the APT development team had an aerospace background which did not endear them to "railway engineers" - the "not invented here syndrome"! There was an Open University TV programme about the APT in the early 1980s but I've long lost the Betamax copy I made of it.Pyrotec 15:46, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed Merger

Should this article be merged with British_Rail_Class_370 and British_Rail_APT-E to provide a single point of reference for the APT programme? —Achmelvic

The page started out as an overall description of the Advanced Passenger Train Programme, with separate pages for APT-E and APT-P then they grew by themselves. I think the existing page stands by itself with the others perhaps giving more specific detail. Possibly repeated info could be edited out. I seem to remember there was another page for the POP train - and what about HSFV? If it was all merged together it would be far too large. To my mind it was the most important train built by British Rail, but then I'm biassed (not NPOV). Chevin 17:33, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] APT vs Pendolino:

Interestingly enough at the foot of the Wikipage (As it stands at time of writing this.) it mentions that even today the Virgin Pendolino takes 15 minutes longer than the APT (Going on the 1980/81 timetable) to do a London > Glasgow run. One thing I would like to add to this in discussion is the habit that BR seemed to have of making cross-country trains call at virtually every vaugely important station on the way. I've used the WCML every so often for the last 18 years and remember that back in BR days, each train used to have a stop list longer than the Nile. Nowadays however, a lot of train routes (Especially Virgin) cut out most of these stations completely, meaning that a whole route now only involves about six station calls.

Assuming that all APT services would have been subject to the same huge list of stations on each route, the fact that they could STILL do the journey in less time than a six-stop Pendolino is not just good, it's completely astounding! Obviously the APT must have had something unheard of in the accelleration department if it was able to call at 25-odd stations in four hours! :-D

Hyperspeed - 12th May 2006CR at 04:10 GMT

In fairness, the Pendolino schedule contains an awful lot of recovery time - I went to Glasgow last August and we had a few extended stops and hung around near Polmadie for so long I reckon we'd have arrived half an hour early if we'd just pressed on. I think you're exaggerating a bit about 25 stops on the way! BR was known to run the occasional London - Preston non-stop, and the stopping pattern would probably have been Euston - Watford Jn (p.u,) - Rugby - (maybe Litchfield - Tamworth -) Stafford - Crewe - Warrington - Wigan - Preston - Lancaster - Oxenholme - Penrith - Carlisle - Lockerbie - Motherwell - Glasgow hmm, OK, maybe a maximum of 16 stops, but I think they'd probably have left out the Trent Valley stops, one of Oxenholme or Penrith, and Lockerbie. -- Arwel (talk) 11:48, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
I did travel on the first APT journey Glasgow to London (the one with the "sick" journalists) as a paying passenger; the APT broke down on several of the subsequently three journeys, but I returned the following day on the standard Intercity service. Sorry I can't remember all the APT stops but they were not many; Glasgow, Motherwell, Carlisle, Lancaster, Warrington and Euston, I think.
The Intercity Glasgow London trains, I used between 1979 and 1991, did not stop at Warford Jn, Litchfield or Tamworth, but the others mentioned by Arwel - Yes. One north bound APT did stop at Penrith to drop off a certain female TV personality, it caused quite a "stink" as it was not a scheduled stop for the APT. Pyrotec 19:50, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Timeline of APT compared with HST

The Background paragraph infers that the APT was developed as a result of the HST success on the GWML. This is not the case. The APT-E came first (out of Derby), and the HST-P was a parallel development that enhanced existing technology. I think the first paragraph of background needs to be revised accordingly. Discuss...... --Stewart 06:54, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

I agree and there is considerable documentary evidence to back this up.Pyrotec 09:18, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Sorry I'm a bit confused here. The paragraph doesn't mention the Great Western Main Line. Perhaps the confusion arises on the ECML because High Speed Train is caps rather than high speed trains. The ECML was the first line where attempts were made to increase the speed. This was in the early sixties using Class 86's (I think). While there was some success, it was clear that it could not be replicated on the other main lines. Research began in Derby in 1963 into wheel profiles and improved suspensions, which led to the High Speed Freight Vehicle (about which an article ought to be written). The idea for an advanced train came about towards the end of the sixties, if I remember rightly, with design work for the APT and HST proceeding pretty well concurrently through the seventies. Chevin 11:57, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Class 86s on the ECML in the 60s?? I think not, as the line wasn't electrified until the late 80s. Perhaps you mean the Class 55s (Deltics)? -- Arwel (talk) 15:29, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
Sorry. You are probably right. My involvement was within the laboratory and not on the larger network so may have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. Chevin 08:49, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
AFAIK a Class 86 was fitted with a nose cone for trials - whether this was for the HST or the APT I am not sure. --Stewart 08:51, 16 July 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure this is relevant. The problem with higher speeds was to do with train/track dynamics. The ECML (having been built somewhat later than the others) is much straighter. When the earlier lines were built the problems were thought to be gradients rather than curves, also placating landowners. By the mid 20th century the land had been built up so, unlike Japan, it was not practible to realign the track.Chevin 08:59, 16 July 2007 (UTC) skirseeTh