|
APT-P
British Rail's Class 370 tilting trains, also referred to as APT-P (meaning Advanced Passenger Train Prototype), were the pre-production Advanced Passenger Train units. Unlike the earlier experimental gas-turbine APT-E unit, these units were powered by 25 kV AC overhead electrification and were used on the West Coast Main Line between London Euston and Glasgow Central. The APT-P is the most powerful domestic train to have operated in Britain, the eight traction motors fitted to the two central Motor Cars giving a total output of . This enabled the train to set the UK rail speed record of in December 1979, a record that stood for 23 years until broken by a Eurostar Class 373 on the newly completed High Speed 1. History The APT-P was unveiled to the public on 7 June 1978 and continued to be used for testing into 1986. Due to ongoing technical problems with these pre-production units, and a lack of cash or political will to take the project forward, the planned APT-S (A ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Advanced Passenger Train
The Advanced Passenger Train (APT) was a tilting high speed train developed by British Rail during the 1970s and early 1980s, for use on the West Coast Main Line (WCML). The WCML contained many curves, and the APT pioneered the concept of active tilting to address these, a feature that has since been copied on designs around the world. The experimental APT-E achieved a new British railway speed record on 10 August 1975 when it reached , only to be bested by the service prototype APT-P at in December 1979. Development of the service prototypes dragged on, and by the late 1970s the design had been under construction for a decade and the trains were still not ready for service. The election of Margaret Thatcher brought matters to a head and she alluded to funding cuts for the project. Facing the possibility of cancellation, BR management decided to put the prototypes into service, with the first runs along the London-Glasgow route taking place in December 1981. The result was a me ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Rail
British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British railway companies, and was privatised in stages between 1994 and 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Commission, it became an independent statutory corporation in January 1963, when it was formally renamed the British Railways Board. The period of nationalisation saw sweeping changes in the railway. A process of dieselisation and electrification took place, and by 1968 steam locomotives had been entirely replaced by diesel and electric traction, except for the Vale of Rheidol Railway (a narrow-gauge tourist line). Passengers replaced freight as the main source of business, and one-third of the network was closed by the Beeching cuts of the 1960s in an effort to reduce rail subsidies. On privatis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tilting Train
A tilting train is a train that has a mechanism enabling increased speed on regular rail tracks. As a train (or other vehicle) rounds a curve at speed, objects inside the train experience centrifugal force. This can cause packages to slide about or seated passengers to feel squashed by the outboard armrest, and standing passengers to lose their balance. Tilting trains are designed to counteract this by tilting the carriages towards the inside of the curve, thus compensating for the g-force. The train may be constructed such that inertial forces cause the tilting (''passive tilt''), or it may have a computer-controlled powered mechanism (''active tilt''). The first passive tilting car design was built in the US in 1937, and an improved version was built in 1939. The beginning of World War II ended development. Talgo introduced a version based on their articulated bogie design in 1950s, and this concept was used on a number of commercial services. Among these was the UAC Turbo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crewe Heritage Centre
Crewe Heritage Centre is a railway museum located in Crewe, England. Managed by the Crewe Heritage Trust, the museum is located between the railway station and the town centre; the site was the location of the 'Old Works' which was demolished in the early 1980s. History The centre was established in the old London, Midland and Scottish Railway yard, which was once part of Crewe Works, between the junction to Chester and the West Coast Main Line. It was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, on 24 July 1987. It was renamed in 1992 as Crewe Railway Age by the owning registered charity but, after the management of the centre was taken over by a new group of volunteers, the museum returned to its original name of Crewe Heritage Centre in early 2008. Exhibits The centre has a series of exhibits, ranging from the only surviving APT-P train, miniature railways, three open signal boxes (Crewe Station A, Crewe North Junction and Exeter West) and a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Rail Engineering Limited
British Rail Engineering Limited (BREL) was the railway systems engineering subsidiary of British Rail. Established in 1970, the maintenance arm was split as British Rail Maintenance Limited in 1987, and the design and building of trains was privatised in 1989, purchased by the Swiss-Swedish conglomerate Asea Brown Boveri (40%), Trafalgar House (40%), and a management-employee buy-out (20%). After ABB became the sole shareholder in September 1992, it was subsumed into ABB Transportation. History BREL was established by the British Railways Board on 1 January 1970 to take over the management of its 14 rolling stock maintenance centres, including Ashford, Crewe, Derby Litchurch Lane, Derby Locomotive, Doncaster, Eastleigh, Glasgow, Horwich, Shildon, Swindon, Wolverton, and York. Ashford Works closed in 1981, Shildon in 1984, and Swindon in 1986. In 1987, Doncaster, Eastleigh, Glasgow, and Wolverton were transferred to BR Maintenance. Not all British Rail rolling stock wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Rail Class 91
The British Rail Class 91 is a high-speed rail, high-speed electric locomotive, which produces power of ; it was ordered as a component of the East Coast Main Line modernisation and electrification programme of the late 1980s. The Class 91s were given the auxiliary name of InterCity 225 to indicate their envisaged top speed of ; they were also referred to as ''Electras'' by British Rail during their development and throughout the electrification of the East Coast Main Line. The other end of the InterCity 225 train set is formed of a Mark 4 Driving Van Trailer, built with a similar body shell to the Class 91 locomotives but with only one driving cab. The locomotive body shells are of all-steel construction. Unusually, the motors are body mounted and drive bogie-mounted gearboxes via cardan shafts; this reduces the unsprung mass and hence track wear at high speeds. The locomotive also features an underslung transformer, therefore the body is relatively empty compared to contemporar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Rail APT-E
The APT-E, for Advanced Passenger Train Experimental, was the prototype Advanced Passenger Train tilting train unit. It was powered by gas turbines, the only multiple unit so powered that was used by British Rail. The APT-E consisted of two driving power cars (PC1 and 2) and two trailer cars (TC1 and 2). Each power car was equipped with four Rover-built Leyland 2S/350 gas turbines (and a fifth for auxiliary power supplies), which initially produced 300 hp each but were progressively uprated to 330 hp. Two GEC 253AY nose suspended traction motors provided the traction on the leading bogies. The vehicles were manufactured from aluminium and were approximately , with articulated bogies between them. The APT-E made its first run on 25 July 1972 from Derby to Duffield and was immediately 'blacked' by the drivers' union ASLEF, due to concerns that the single driver's seat pre-empted ongoing negotiations about the single-manning of trains. It was over twelve months before it ran ag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Rail Class 390
The British Rail Class 390 ''Pendolino'' is a type of electric high-speed passenger train operated by Avanti West Coast in the United Kingdom, leased from Angel Trains. They are electric multiple units using Fiat Ferroviaria's tilting train Pendolino technology and built by Alstom. Fifty-three units were originally built between 2001 and 2004 for operation on the West Coast Main Line (WCML). They were ordered as eight-car units, later extended to nine cars, of which some were then lengthened further to 11 cars. These new 11-car trains were renumbered as the subclass 390/1. The trains of the original batch were the last to be assembled at Alstom's Washwood Heath plant, before its closure in 2005. The remaining trains in the fleet were built in Italy. The Class 390 ''Pendolino'' is one of the fastest domestic electric multiple units operating in Britain, with a design speed of ; however, limitations to track signalling systems restrict the trains to a maximum speed of in servi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
High Speed 1
High Speed 1 (HS1), legally the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL), is a high-speed railway linking London with the Channel Tunnel. It is part of a line carrying international passenger traffic between the United Kingdom and mainland Europe; it also carries domestic passenger traffic to and from stations in Kent and east London, and continental European loading gauge freight traffic. From the Channel Tunnel, the line crosses the River Medway, and tunnels under the River Thames, terminating at London St Pancras International station on the north side of central London. It cost £5.8 billion to build and opened on 14 November 2007. Trains run at speeds of up to on HS1. Intermediate stations are at in London, Ebbsfleet International in northern Kent and Ashford International in southern Kent. International passenger services are provided by Eurostar International, with journey times from London St Pancras International to Paris Gare du Nord in 2hours 15minutes, and Lond ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
East Coast Main Line
The East Coast Main Line (ECML) is a electrified railway between London and Edinburgh via Peterborough, Doncaster, York, Darlington, Durham and Newcastle. The line is a key transport artery on the eastern side of Great Britain running broadly parallel to the A1 road. The line was built during the 1840s by three railway companies, the North British Railway, the North Eastern Railway, and the Great Northern Railway. In 1923, the Railway Act of 1921 led to their amalgamation to form the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) and the line became its primary route. The LNER competed with the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) for long-distance passenger traffic between London and Scotland. The LNER's chief engineer Sir Nigel Gresley designed iconic Pacific steam locomotives, including '' Flying Scotsman'' and '' Mallard'' which achieved a world record speed for a steam locomotive, on the Grantham-to-Peterborough section. In 1948, the railways were nationalise ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pendolino
Pendolino (from Italian ''pendolo'' "pendulum", and ''-ino,'' a diminutive suffix) is an Italian family of tilting trains used in Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Finland, Russia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the UK, the US, Switzerland, China and Greece. Based on the design of the Italian ETR 401 (itself being based on British Rail innovations), it was further developed and manufactured by Fiat Ferroviaria, which was taken over by Alstom in 2000. The idea of a tilting train became popular in the 1960s and 1970s when various rail operators, impressed by the high-speed rail services being introduced in France and Japan, wondered how they could similarly speed up travel without building a dedicated parallel rail network (as those two countries were doing). By tilting, the train could go around curves designed for slower trains at higher speeds without causing undue discomfort to passengers. Current use Italy In Italy, various possibilities were explor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fiat Ferroviaria
Alstom Ferroviaria S.p.A., former Fiat Ferroviaria S.p.A., is the Italian division of Alstom. Fiat Ferroviaria S.p.A. was the rail division of automobile manufacturer Fiat. It was founded in 1880 as Società Nazionale Officine di Savigliano.History , Alstom Fiat Ferroviaria began building locomotives in the 1930s. It became part of Fiat in 1970. Fiat Ferroviaria acquired the rail business of of Switzerland in 1995, forming the subsidiary Fiat-Sig. The company had previously owned Ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
.jpg "Click for more on -> British Rail")
.jpg "Click for more on -> Crewe Heritage Centre")
