Just a quick post to point up a couple of BBC articles and some related rail news. One is history — the train everyone laughed at, but which was part of the effort to develop new passenger train technology.
These days, passengers on Italian-designed Pendolino trains on the UK's West Coast Main Line think nothing of listing as they make their way to destinations at speeds well in excess of 100mph, even through windy sections. Those travelling from Paris to the Cote D'Azur, or in Switzerland, China and Japan experience the same sensation.
What's often forgotten is that much of the technology enabling trains to tilt as they enter bends - using sensors and hydraulic jacks - was developed in the UK. The Advanced Passenger Train was in service in short patches from 1981 until it was finally removed in the winter of 1985/6.
In its brief life the APT, with its futuristic sloped front, was vilified as a waste of money - £47m in total - and mocked by the press.
In the 1960s, America was struggling to hold onto passenger trains; it’s worth remembering that others were still seeking to improve the basic technology and develop new hardware. The APT didn’t work out finally, but it did lead in part to a renowned successor.
The less ambitious but similar appearing Intercity 125 came into service in the 1970s, and is only now nearing phasing out. (The closest America came to anything like this were the Turboliners Amtrak ran, with limited success.)
Alas for Britain, the story of what might have been if the APT had succeeded is turning a new chapter as trains are being brought in from Japan to eventually replace the current workhorse. The Hitachi Class 800 train sets are being set up for some high expectations.
Over the next few years, 122 of these hi-tech trains will be assembled at a new plant in County Durham. All will be electric and almost half will be able to switch between running on overhead wires or - where a line has not been electrified - as diesels.
The first trains will run on the Great Western main line from 2017 and the East Coast main line from 2018.
Rail writer Christian Wolmar says the new Hitachi will be the standard UK train over the coming decades. "It is due to become the 747 of the railways."
The BBC has an interesting video piece comparing the Intercity 125 with the Hitachi with some interactive features. The link to the old clip of the 125’s first coming into service has a vintage advertisement at the end, comparing riding the train to taking a business trip in a car. It’s a hoot — especially with the ‘train bimbo’ shot at the end, of a blonde in a bikini leaning out of a train door.
England at least has one advatange the U.S. lacks — passenger trains that don’t have to share tracks with freights the way Amtrak has to in most of the U.S. They can afford to invest in higher speed equipment running on rails that can permit those speeds to be realized. At least the new transportation bill has some money for rail in it.
Authorization for passenger rail is in the surface authorization for the first time
While the bill does far too little for truly making our system multimodal and making greater investments in more transportation options, it takes a positive step by bringing passenger rail into the larger surface transportation authorization for the first time ever. (This was typically passed as a standalone bill and Congress usually had little impetus for quick action.) Passenger rail will still have to go through the general appropriation process each year (getting started now for FY16, if you’ve been following along) to get their funding, but this positions it well for the long-term hope: including and funding passenger rail with guaranteed funds from a multimodal, 21st century transportation trust fund in the years ahead.
It might be interesting to see if we can get a deal on the Intercity 125s that will be showing up in the used train lots soon...