The Bombardier Turbostar (sold as the ADtranz Turbostar until 2001) is a family of
diesel multiple unit (DMU) passenger trains that was built by
ADtranz and later
Bombardier Transportation
Bombardier Transportation was a Canadian-German rolling stock and rail transport manufacturer, headquartered in Berlin, Germany.
It was one of the world's largest companies in the rail vehicle and equipment manufacturing and servicing industr ...
at
Derby Litchurch Lane Works
Derby Litchurch Lane Works (formerly Derby Carriage and Wagon Works) is a railway rolling stock factory in Derby, England. It was opened in the 19th century by the Midland Railway. The plant has produced rolling stock under the ownership of the ...
in the
United Kingdom between 1997 and 2011. The Turbostar was the first new train type to be introduced after the
privatisation of British Rail. The first units were ordered by
Chiltern Railways
Chiltern Railways, formally The Chiltern Railway Company Limited, is a British train operating company that has operated the Chiltern Railways franchise since July 1996. Since 2009, it has been a subsidiary of Arriva UK Trains.
Chiltern Railwa ...
in 1996 and were designated
Class 168 (also known as ''Clubman''). Since then the family has grown with the addition of the
Class 170,
Class 171, and the
Class 172.
Description and technical details
The Turbostar and Electrostar platforms are a modular design, which share the same basic design, bodyshell and core structure, and are optimised for speedy manufacture and easy maintenance. They consist of a common
underframe
An underframe is a framework of wood or metal carrying the main body structure of a railway vehicle, such as a locomotive, carriage or wagon.
See also
* Chassis
* Headstock
A headstock or peghead is part of a guitar or similar stringed in ...
, which is created by seam-welding a number of aluminium alloy
extrusion
Extrusion is a process used to create objects of a fixed cross-sectional profile by pushing material through a die of the desired cross-section. Its two main advantages over other manufacturing processes are its ability to create very complex ...
s, upon which bodyside panels are mounted followed by a single piece roof, again made from extruded sections. The car ends (cabs) are made from
glass-reinforced plastic
Fiberglass (American English) or fibreglass (Commonwealth English) is a common type of fiber-reinforced plastic using glass fiber. The fibers may be randomly arranged, flattened into a sheet called a chopped strand mat, or woven into glass cloth ...
and steel, and are
huck-bolted onto the main car bodies. Underframe components are collected in ‘rafts’, which are bolted into slots on the underframe extrusion. The mostly aluminium alloy body gives light weight to help acceleration and energy efficiency.
Much of the design of the Class 168/170/171 is derived from the
Networker Turbo Class 165 and
Class 166 trains built by
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 pr ...
's
Holgate Road carriage works. Notable features shared are the aluminium alloy frame and two-stage
Voith T211r
hydrodynamic transmission system. The
diesel engine has changed to an
MTU 6R 183TD13H. A
cardan shaft links the output of the gearbox to
ZF final drives (instead of
Gmeinder in the Networkers) on the inner bogie of each vehicle. The engine and transmission are situated under the body; one bogie per car is powered, the other bogie unpowered.
The Class 172 differs mechanically to its older relations in several ways. The engine used is the more powerful and cleaner MTU 6H1800R83, the transmission is the mechanical 6-speed ZF Ecomat-Rail, and lighter Bombardier FLEXX-ECO bogies and hollow axles are used as well as half-height airdams. The exhaust system is also quieter and does not have the distinctive note of that of the Class 168/170/171.
Turbostars have been acquired for use by several
train operating companies
A train operating company (TOC) is a business operating passenger trains on the railway system of Great Britain under the collective National Rail brand. TOCs have existed since the privatisation of the network under the Railways Act 1993.
T ...
, each with different specifications. One of the more noticeable differences with later units compared to earlier ones are the larger headlights now specified for safety reasons.
Units are numbered 168 xxx, 170 xxx, 171 xxx, or 172 xxx, where xxx is the serial number of the unit. Individual carriages are numbered 50xxx and 79xxx for driving motor cars, and 54xxx, 55xxx and 56xxx for centre cars.
Working in multiple
One factor which contributes to the popularity of the Turbostars is that Class 170 units are fully capable of working in multiple with older types from the Class 15x ''
Sprinter'' series of units as well as other units of the same class,
unlike all other types built since privatisation, giving them greater flexibility. However, there are issues with so-called "sandwich" formations, formed either as 170-15x-170 or 15x-170-15x, which causes problems with empty stock movements where up to four units of various types coupled together is common. A possible side effect of this is that Turbostars' performance is in line with the second generation 15x units, in fact being somewhat slower than a
Class 150 or
Class 156 on "short hop" workings, and slower than a
Class 158 on longer distance workings unless there is enough 100 mph running to take advantage of the 10 mph higher top speed of the Class 170.
The Class 171 units are fitted with
Dellner couplers rather than
BSI (''
Bergische Stahl Industrie
Faiveley Transport (), formerly Faiveley, is an international manufacturer and supplier of equipment for the railway industry founded in 1919. It introduced the single-arm pantograph in 1955. The company has subsidiaries in more than 24 count ...
'') couplers, which means that they can mechanically couple with Southern's
Class 377 ''Electrostar'' EMUs for rescue purposes.
Variants
References
Further reading
*
External links
Detailed description of the Turbostars
{{Bombardier Turbostar, Electrostar and Alstom Aventra families
Bombardier Transportation multiple units
Adtranz multiple units
British Rail diesel multiple units
Train-related introductions in 1998