CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » General Edinburgh
"Luxury travel pledged in bid for east coast trains"
(3 posts)-
Posted 10 years ago #
-
Pendolinos are garbage, ime. The luggage racks above the seats have little room for actualy luggage cos the tilting round corners means they had to lop bits off the trains to let them pass each other.
Posted 10 years ago # -
The APT was developed to tilt because a train will stay on the rails going round a corner at speeds well above that which will see passengers slammed against the sides of the carriages by centrifugal force. Comfort is restored by banking the track (or cant) but can that then makes it uncomfortable for those on slower trains, and requires transition from flat & straight to canted and curved.
The answer is to tilt the train. I really notice this when I have to travel up via Newcastle on the non-tilting HST's and 225's as I feel that sliding sensation on the seat, as the train driver hits the curves at Grantshouse and elsewhere on the bendy parts of the route. Morpeth for example could be taken at a much higher speed. Essentially trains will stay on the rails until they go past the speed at which 20 degrees of cant is needed to keep the passengers sitting comfortably.
Of course Ian Yeowart might look to do what Grand Central was planning with their first bid to run to Scotland, and use 'other' lines. It would in fact make a great deal of dense to extend his London-Bradford services to Scotland via Settle and Carlisle, as the former Midland Railway Main Line is actually the shortest route to Edinburgh from Leeds and despite the speed being limited to 60mph in places, the journey time Glasgow-Leeds via Appleby can actually be marginally faster than going via York, and the fare is half the price! One year when I worked at Haymarket Depot an incident meant all trains were being sent via Carlisle. Our train was sent directly to Leeds as there was a local train from Carlisle to Newcastle to take those passengers across. As a result we had to wait for around 20 minutes outside Leeds, and still arrived 10 minutes early, such was the saving in time and distance.
In this respect a tilting Voyager train, with the addition of the 'Project Thor' pantograph carriage might be a more appropriate unit to operate.
PS @The_Boy The current 225's with Mk 4 coaches were designed and built for 140mph AND tilting but neither has been delivered.
Posted 10 years ago #
Reply
You must log in to post.
posts
