The APT project and what may have been

[D2022]

So I've got quite interested in the amazing APT-P and was wondering what the reasons for rejecting it were? I think I heard it was brakes or something a while back, buy any other reasons?

The HST fleet has done pretty damn well out of its failure though it must be said, it just seems we could have had titling electrics on the WCML at least instead for the last 30 year's, would they still be here if the APT got off its feet?

 

[90019]

The APT-U is doing alright, they've been in service more than 20 years now.

 

[Roverman]

Having also taken an interest in the project and thinking 'what might have been' I think the problem was that it looked to the outsider just like an HST and therefore people expected it to work reliably just like an HST. The technology was never given a chance to be fully tested out before being put on the 'run' and those stories of tilt sickness were IMO exagerated tales from Journos who got plastered on BR plonk!

I lamented its passing yesterday when it took over 4 hours just to get to Glasgow from Stafford.

 

[ryan125hst]

The APT-U is doing alright, they've been in service more than 20 years now.

Not quite. Looking at the formations here: http://www.apt-p.com/APTConfigurations.htm
The APT-U did away with articulated bogies. However, unlike the planned APT-S and the 225's, it was not planned to use a DVT and they going to use two locomotives, and use a small space in the coaches next to the locomotives as a guards van (like the TGS on a HST I'm guessing).

Another difference is that they were only going to have one door on each side of each carriage. The Mark 4's have a door on each side at both ends of the coach.

Other than that though, they are very similar.

 

[Manchester77]

We wouldn't have the class 90 (87/2) or 91.
APT was intended for iirc WCML and ECML
The existing WCML fleet (86/87s and mark 2/3 coaches) would be transferred to the MML.
HSTs would have been cascaded as planned onto some lines out of Waterloo.
They'd probably undergo a mallard style refresh in 2001 - 2004.
I'd imagine upon privatisation, had it happened, and virgin won WCML they wouldn't be looking for a replacement (1996) however if imagine now at the current renewal (2012/3/4) they will be looking for a replacement to come some time in 2018ish.
IEP probably wouldn't exist. Instead a new build APT-2 would be in the pipeline for the APT-S fleets ready for retirement after a long service lasting from the late 80s until late 2010s/early 2020s
We'd be able to go from London to Glasgow in around 3 hours 50 minutes

 

[Eagle]

The existing WCML fleet (86/87s and mark 2/3 coaches) would be transferred to the MML.

Assuming of course it was electrified.

 

[Welshman]

I remember seeing it gliding through Nuneaton on test, and was much impressed.

As I understand it, APT failed because it was too good.

It fully-compensated for the cant deficiency, leaving the brain unable to reconcile the feeling of going straight on with the views out of the windows. This was one of the contributory factors of sickness and nausiness. Although today's pendolinos tilt, you are still aware of going around a bend, therefore you feel no ill effects.

Also, IIRC, it was introduced in December, just as the icy wintry conditions were beginning to bite - possibly the worst time to introduce a new train. I think it achieved one journey to time in public use, and was then delayed, or terminated at Preston, for which it received a bad press.

All this led to managment getting cold feet and an ignominous end for this fine train.

We can only speculate what could have happened had it continued in squadron service. But I suspect the WCML would have got tilting trains some 20 years before it did, possibly followed by the ECML, which would have been a great boon through the curvy sections in the Trent Valley, between Darlington & Durham and between Newcastle & Edinburgh, and the Western Main line may have been electrified with them, too.

 

[Trog]

I rode on the APT from Euston to Preston, during one of the staff demo runs.
The ride was good and it did not seem to be fighting the track like the Pendolino's do. The seating was also a lot better, and it did not smell like a high velocity toilet.

 

[Eagle]

...and it did not smell like a high velocity toilet.

That'll be because it was brand new and hadn't yet suffered the excretory wrath of tens of thousands of passengers.

 

[Bedpan]

I have always wondered if it was run in such atrocious weather conditions as a precursor to the project being axed. In fact I was surprised at the time as I thought that it had done well bearing in mind the weather. Look what happened to the Eurostars 30 odd years later when they failed one after the other in the Channel Tunnel.

 

[LE Greys]

We wouldn't have the class 90 (87/2) or 91.
APT was intended for iirc WCML and ECML
The existing WCML fleet (86/87s and mark 2/3 coaches) would be transferred to the MML.
HSTs would have been cascaded as planned onto some lines out of Waterloo.
They'd probably undergo a mallard style refresh in 2001 - 2004.
I'd imagine upon privatisation, had it happened, and virgin won WCML they wouldn't be looking for a replacement (1996) however if imagine now at the current renewal (2012/3/4) they will be looking for a replacement to come some time in 2018ish.
IEP probably wouldn't exist. Instead a new build APT-2 would be in the pipeline for the APT-S fleets ready for retirement after a long service lasting from the late 80s until late 2010s/early 2020s
We'd be able to go from London to Glasgow in around 3 hours 50 minutes

I have also heard references to APT-D, so I suspect that the GWML would have been given the tilting treatment as well. A BR 'Voyager'?
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

As I understand it, APT failed because it was too good.

It fully-compensated for the cant deficiency, leaving the brain unable to reconcile the feeling of going straight on with the views out of the windows. This was one of the contributory factors of sickness and nausiness. Although today's pendolinos tilt, you are still aware of going around a bend, therefore you feel no ill effects.

Would this have been solvable with minor changes to the software? I also note a complete lack of anything resembling TASS. Instead, the tilt was on all the time, so no need for such a massive upgrade. If we had an APT-D, it would run at increased speeds everywhere with much less complication. Making it self-levelling when stopped on curves might make things more comfortable as well. Why didn't they just stick with this with the Voyagers (which are never out of gauge even when right over)? We could have had tilt on the entire network then.

 

[ainsworth74]

BR had fixed the tilt by the end or at least it wasn't making people sick any more but I'm unsure about it's reliability. Also I can't quite remember what they were for but the APT program did include fitting track balises a few of which, until recently, could still be found on the WCML. Though thinking about it that might have been for in-cab signalling (when they were still aiming for 155mph) rather than anything to do with tilt.

 

[NightStar]

Could the surviving ATP be restored for mainline charter use? Either the electric or turbine set?

Robert

 

[John55]

So I've got quite interested in the amazing APT-P and was wondering what the reasons for rejecting it were? I think I heard it was brakes or something a while back, buy any other reasons?

The HST fleet has done pretty damn well out of its failure though it must be said, it just seems we could have had titling electrics on the WCML at least instead for the last 30 year's, would they still be here if the APT got off its feet?

The fundamental reason is that BR could never persuade the government to allow it to spend the money re-equiping the WCML with a fleet of new trains, APT or otherwise. A problem only resolved by Virgin post privatisation with the revolution in railway financing.

The other thing to bear in mind is by the time the APT project fizzled out the proposed trains bore almost no resemblance to the APT-P. There has been discussion here before about the supposed relationship between APT-U and the IC225 which has been repeated in this thread. This is not the case as the IC225 was a new design by a different company with no common components with APT.

 

[jopsuk]

Could the surviving ATP be restored for mainline charter use? Either the electric or turbine set?

Robert

The remaining bits of an electric set is too short to be economical. The turbine set even more so- and it was only ever configured as a laboratory.

 

[Kali]

They sorted the tilt out by not making it tilt completely, so you got a gentle push outwards in a corner. The balises were for the APT-C system which was a speed overlay, don't think it had any actual signalling function.

The project wasn't going fast enough for a train-hating govt - was possibly attempting to do too many new things at the same time.

 

[starrymarkb]

was possibly attempting to do too many new things at the same time.

This was the undoing... Costs were spiralling rapidly...

And the government at the time wasn't exactly anti rail as while they wouldn't fund everything BR wanted, they still funded a lot of major improvements!

 

[dangie]

Politics.

The APT project is very similar to the fiasco surrounding the TSR2 jet fighter back in the 1960's. Both superb pieces of kit way ahead of their time. Both projects were virtually complete when politians shoved their oare in.

One quote regarding the TSR2:

"All modern aircraft have four dimensions: span, length, height and politics. TSR2 simply got the first three right."

The same quote could apply to the APT.

TSR2 Aircraft

 

[D2022]

It's very interesting to hear what could have been actually. And why it failed, I will never forget seeing the APT-P at Crewe as a little kid and thinking it was amazing (at LNWR or whatever its called, Watermans place) and then how miffed I was when a few years down the line Virgin got Pendelinos, it amazed me to think the tech had been around years yet it was wasted to a degree.

I always thought, personally, that the Concorde funding should have been pulled and the project scrapped to give the APT project the money it needed to develop the train sets further. Ironic isn't it, Concorde failed dismally and was doomed from day ones yet funds were given, 30 years down the line it's no longer here yet tilting trains are...

 

[Kali]

Well, Concorde was multinational and predates APT a bit, and had the misfortune of running headlong into the oil crisis amongst other things. TSR2 I always thought was a victim of beaurocracy - the wonderful idea we had in the 60s of giving multiple teams the same thing to do so they all had a job. They managed to produce a stunning aircraft despite all that, but I'd hate to imagine what a production line would have cost to set up with that sort of culture...

We're quite good at that, I was discussing this with someone else earlier about the Skylon project; Great at design & prototyping, good at finance ( mostly, recent problems aside... ) but really bad at putting the two together and producing in numbers.

 

[starrymarkb]

I always thought, personally, that the Concorde funding should have been pulled and the project scrapped to give the APT project the money it needed to develop the train sets further. Ironic isn't it, Concorde failed dismally and was doomed from day ones yet funds were given, 30 years down the line it's no longer here yet tilting trains are...

Concorde does predate APT by a long way (being a 1960s project). In hindsight the government should have put more into Airbus (as it was Hawker Siddley put in privately) which was starting out around the same time...

One way to look at APT's funding was as APT vs ECML wiring, the NSE upgrade, Sprinterisation... You could argue that those were equally valid uses of the funding...

 

[Wyvern]

You could look at it the other way round and consider the APT project’s effect on the railway
industry.

By the time the idea took root BR had already spent a few years doing fundamental empirical research into railway dynamics.

It provided a flagship project that was a visible example of the results we were achieving.
Never mind that the knowledge gained was being applied to other designs such as the
Sprinters and the HST, and that the world’s railways were visiting Derby to see what we were up to.

By the end of the decade, Allan Wickens was able to say “All the fundamental problems have
been solved.” (or something similar) and British Railways had rewritten the text books.

Any other country would have trumpeted it from the rooftops, but BR was a nationalised
entity and it wasn’t politic to do so. After that the Japanese took up the banner.

 

[IanBanks-Jones]

In my opinion, had APT been fully financed, we would still have a nationalised railway network, with a full order book exporting our tilting train technology all across the world.

We can speculate all we like, but the government were too concerned with short term fixes and solutions rather than a cohesive strategy. That's why we have to import most of our rolling stock, and thousands of 'customers' have to make their journeys in pacers.

They got it wrong, but it's too late to change it now.

 

[Peter Sarf]

The trouble with politics is short termism. Any initiative has to generate extra votes for the next General Election. Its hopeless really for long term planning.

We have got APT though. The Pendolino uses the tilt technology we sold to the Italians - I think ?.

 

[Wyvern]

BR received patent royalties for many years for a number of innovations. Plus the spin off from the APT research were ways of doing things faster better cheaper.

The Pendolino uses balises in the track for the tilt - a technology in its infancy in the eighties - rather than fedback from dynamic meaurements (accelerometers) plus modern trains have the benefit of two decades of improved electronics and microprocessor technology.

 

[colchesterken]

I agree with Ian. it angers me that in the UK we come up with all there good ideas but do not see them through.How did we give up on it only for the Italians to perfect our technology we should have stuck with the project and led the world
That is the trouble we never see things through..remember Thameslink 2000 now 2018.
I thought crossrail was a good idea in the 70 when it was first talked about ( cost a good bit less then ) just think of the benifits if we had done both thoes things then
Mr Brunel is getting seasick from turning in his grave

 

[43074]

The trouble with politics is short termism. Any initiative has to generate extra votes for the next General Election. Its hopeless really for long term planning.

We have got APT though. The Pendolino uses the tilt technology we sold to the Italians - I think ?.

Yes we did sell the technology to Fiat.

By the way, the IC225 doesn't use any APT technology, but the lessons from it; for example, the sloped body sides on 91 and Mark 4 coaches.

 

[ryan125hst]

They sorted the tilt out by not making it tilt completely, so you got a gentle push outwards in a corner. The balises were for the APT-C system which was a speed overlay, don't think it had any actual signalling function.

The project wasn't going fast enough for a train-hating govt - was possibly attempting to do too many new things at the same time.

Do you know where I can find information about APT-C? I've done a quick Google search and can't find anything. What with ERTMS being installed across the UK eventually, and TASS currently being used on the WCML (and APT being used on the GWML), I am interested to see how they compare.

 

[John55]

They sorted the tilt out by not making it tilt completely, so you got a gentle push outwards in a corner. The balises were for the APT-C system which was a speed overlay, don't think it had any actual signalling function.
.

The tilt systems (they were on the mk3 by the end) never worked entirely satisfactorily. While the passenger comfort issues were resolved the 3 prototypes were withdrawn because it was not possible to guarantee that 2 passing APTs would not collide under certain fault conditions.

In my opinion, had APT been fully financed, we would still have a nationalised railway network, with a full order book exporting our tilting train technology all across the world.

We can speculate all we like, but the government were too concerned with short term fixes and solutions rather than a cohesive strategy. That's why we have to import most of our rolling stock, and thousands of 'customers' have to make their journeys in pacers.

They got it wrong, but it's too late to change it now.

It was not the government who lost faith in APT but BR. If BR had really seen a future for it then they would have found the arguments to justify spending the money. If I remember correctly one of the BR Board members was champion of the APT project and it died when he retired as he was the only one who believed in it.

BR received patent royalties for many years for a number of innovations. Plus the spin off from the APT research were ways of doing things faster better cheaper.

The Pendolino uses balises in the track for the tilt - a technology in its infancy in the eighties - rather than fedback from dynamic meaurements (accelerometers) plus modern trains have the benefit of two decades of improved electronics and microprocessor technology.

All the contemporary papers show the tilt control systems of the APT used accelerometers in various configurations to generate the control signals for the tilt.

I agree with Ian. it angers me that in the UK we come up with all there good ideas but do not see them through.How did we give up on it only for the Italians to perfect our technology we should have stuck with the project and led the world

Out of curiosity as APTs and Pendolinos use a completely different tilt actuation system where is the technology transfer from APT?

 

[Wyvern]

All the contemporary papers show the tilt control systems of the APT used accelerometers in various configurations to generate the control signals for the tilt.

That's what I thought I wrote.

Out of curiosity as APTs and Pendolinos use a completely different tilt actuation system where is the technology transfer from APT?

Although the control is by balise rather than accelerometers, there would be a great deal of transferable design detail.