Added: 4 years ago
From: puziparrot
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  • Notice how back then we built things which pushed boundaries instead of importing inferior products. APTs top speed - 155. pendolino top speed - 125 why? Modern expresses should be capable of over 200 if progress still exists. Also, we have never built a loco more powerful than Kestrel - 3,300hp from a tin shed? Pathetic!

  • @thehoff1982 its funny how pendalino can only run on track that the apt-p ran on 30yrs ago because the origional tilt sensors are still there on the track lol otherwise it could run but not tilt. to think with a fraction of what the HS2 line will cost we could have improved 200mph british built apt trains running on standard rail today? polotics has always seen to destroy what this nation creates for the good? why? i agree its al so sad

  • HS4000 was a 1968 equivalent of the recently-introduced GE Class 70 only being 300 hp more than the latter and weighing two tons less and its a crying shame that BR didn't realise its potential need for forthcoming heavy block trains such as aggregates from Somerset or Port Talbot-Llanwern iron-ore traffic.

  • a brain a brain ha it just a aws system

  • drivers and stokers of the steam days were trained up on these. so the commentator can STFU with his "certainly scratch their heads" crap.

  • @plasticspastic201 You got that right dude.

  • What was the music track called during the APT-E part?

  • FUCK THE CONSERVATIVES, FUCK EM

  • haaaa! i was all teary eyed, feeling very nostalgic and emotional when i saw the kestrel and the apt-e - until i saw the onboard 'technology' and nearly spat beer all over my p.c!!! seriously though, kestrel was an utter waste and they gave up on the apt too early.

  • Richard Marsh. He''s the tosser who closed our line. The Waverley Route. Now they''re rebuilding it. Only 300 million pounds. What a good deal. If only they had left it alone they could have saved some cash. Still, thats politics. Spend someone else''s money.

  • Wow you can see a class 28 cobo at 1:55 That might be the loco thats now being restored on the East Lancs Railway. 

  • love the funky music

  • 30 years later they actually have a hgh speed rail

  • @sdfg88

    The reason for this is cause the Press made bad remarks about all the locomotives British Rail made, and wouldn't let British Rail get on with it and test it. I guess your a typical American so proud of your 150MPH Acela Express. Your electric locomotives are no match for our diesels! The HST can match the Acela's speed.

  • @WaerzMedia09 Until I see a Class 66 leading a 15,000 ton Stack Train up a 3% grade I wont be at all impressed with railroading in the UK. So you guys have better passenger trains...oooh big deal. We would to if the US was half the size of California!

  • @phillyslasher

    Until I see America upgrade their passenger rail network efficiently I won't be impressed at all with the railways in the USA. So you guys have better freight trains... Oooh, big deal! We would too if the UK was 250 times the size of itself!

  • @WaerzMedia09 That is a big deal, passengers don't make money, railfreight does. The difference is: a long distance train in Europe is just a commuter train in the US. It's not so easy to convert 140,000 miles of track for highspeed passenger use.

  • @phillyslasher

    Railfreight may make money, but the passenger network makes just as much. Just because your country is almost 250 times the size of us doesn't mean your rail network is more efficient.

  • @WaerzMedia09 Shit, I was using the size excuse to explain why the US sucked at passenger rail, then again that could also be because everybody in this country prefer to fly. And BTW, the Acela can do close to 200mph, just traffic and outdated electrification limit it to 150 ;-)

  • @phillyslasher

    Theres another skint about your rail network. Why should your president invest in upgrading it if no one is going to use it. Thats the opposite in Britain, because lots of people use rail travel but there isn't alot of rail freight. Most of our freight haulage is done by lorries and trucks.

  • @WaerzMedia09 Maybe that's why everybody in Britain take the train, they cant get anywhere with all those trucks on your highways ;-)

  • @phillyslasher

    Yea, in Britain our motorways and dual carriageways are always filled with lorries, you see a lot of traffic on them. On the subject of all transport, I don't see the point in air travel in Britain. Yes, you may get there faster, but look at the costs for the airliner (fuel costs, running the aircraft, cleaning). This is one of the reasons our country is in economic ruins.

  • @WaerzMedia09 The railroads in Britain can successfully compete with the airlines because rail travel times and air travel times are close enough where it's not advantageous to fly. In America it's like that in the northeast like from Boston to New York to D.C and California between Los Angeles and San Diego. But yeah, the economics of air travel all over and certainly in the US has been at an alltime low.

  • @WaerzMedia09 Manchester to London by air is slower and more expensive. That is why I always go by Virgin Trains pendo.

  • @fouloleron2002

    Same with York to London, instead of going to Leeds by train then going to Leeds Intl, I'd rather get an East Coast 91 cause its only 2 hours and its cheaper.

  • Comment removed

  • @sdfg88

    Plus I forgot to add, Australia have the XPT (which is "stolen" from the Class 43 High Speed Train). I remembered this cause I looked on your channel to see that your an Aussie

  • @WaerzMedia09 our rail system is bollocks - hands down/no questions asked.

    yes yes, and we'll get the ashes back off you one day! :-P

  • Its funny how the APT looks alot like the Voyager with its big mirrory windows. And the prototype HST looks kinda cute with that blunt nose!

  • I wonder what happened to inviting the public to comment on outfitting trains in the uk?

    Oh yeah! If they did then the pendolino would have been scrapped.

    Terrible seats in a claustrophobic atmosphere.

    APT really was miles better!

  • It's says it all about the quality of British Engineering that HST's are still going strong

  • Of course the "gentlemen of the press" crowded the buffet car for the ( I think ) free booze! Still the HST is certainly the most sucessful of those trains by a very long way!

  • i miss when you could smoke on trains

  • @itsthatsebguy93 WOW You are small minded!

  • what's your problem man?

  • @itsthatsebguy93 No one wants to breath in your 2nd hand cig smoke OR want there clothes or hair to stink! If you want to kill yourself with these vile things then fill your boots mate.. But I dont really want lung cancer Thanks.

  • @matsui2001 i think your the small minded one and anyway there was only one carriage you could smoke on so i don't see why you'd have to sit on the smoking carriage unless you're that stubborn an you need to be a chain smoker for like 15 years or more to get cancer and i only have the occasional smoke, you need to chill out have a spot of weed and listen to some jazz and i'm side tacking now aren't i? XD

  • @matsui2001

    I hope you don't drive a car or use any fossil fuels in your daily life. It would make you a terrible hypocrite if you did.

  • @Reichsfuhrer1979 I drive a car AND use fossil fuels in my daily life. I am therefore a terrible hypocrite! HA HA HA HA HA.

  • Great video

  • awesome video!

  • Is that a Deltic passing the HST at 3:44? wonder which one it was.

  • Comment removed

  • While we know what an HST sounds like, you can't help rather wishing the funky 60s/70s soundtrack could've let up a bit so we could hear what Kestrel and the APT sounded like a bit more. Anyway, interesting, isn't it, how BR's boffins spent millions and years and years playing with their pet toy the APT, while the engineers just took the existing Mk3 stock, designed power cars for it, and, well, it seems to have worked pretty well, doesn't it.

    But do they still have Micro Wave Ovens???

  • The APT-E The train that never was... Such a shame... This was So advanced for its time

  • In the APT video, the metrovick co-bo in the yard at derby was a surprise. I'd forgotten they had one for a short time.

  • As an American, I cry at the sound of a machine from the 1970s capable of 150mph when our fastest train reaches it for but a few kilometers of track...

    Excellent selection of newsreels!

  • Maybe they should have consulted "you, the public" before they designed those bloody awful Voyager contraptions. Barf.

  • @scriltist I cant agree more so many trips from brum to york.... so much standing up time very little anything else

  • 1:52, old school steam driver or what - he's using a cloth to operate the controls lol!!!

  • My god all of these engines look very ahead of their time; some even look more futuristic than today's locos :)

    Thanks for the upload; I always wanted to see footage of these engines I heard so much about in action :D

  • R.I.P Kestrel :( If only it was still preserved

  • The music for the APT - E part is:

    Inter-City 2 by James Clark, from library music provider KPM's album 'Music Pictorial'...number 1096.

    It's on my channel if you want a listen!

  • Love how all the junk in the APT is probably the size of a calculator nowadays. The music is also class working on tracking it down.

  • Great vid .... so I have to ask did British Rail ever make those trains viable ???

    If anybody knows I would be happy to hear from you.

  • The HST was a huge success, whereas the APT and HS 4000 were miserable failures.

  • Debatable. HS4000 formed the basis for the Russian TEP70, with over 300 built for express passenger work on the broad guage lines in the former USSR- Russia and Estonia amongst others. The APT... Perhaps the most famed aspects, the tilt and hydrokinetic brakes were a failure, but much of the technology found its way into the class 91s.

  • I kinda agree with you.

  • The Hydrokinetic brakes froze and the tilt mechanism enabled the members of the press to see their lunch for a second time. You've got to remeber that the APT-P was pushed into service way before it was ready, and it was still only a prototype. HS4000 was not a failure, as said before it formed the basis for the TEP70. Remeber, it was the single most powerful diesel locomotive at the time in the world, in a much more restricted loading guage than that in America, or the Continent...

  • It's kinda funny the reason the Russians didn't actually make use of Kestrel... namely, that the driver couldn't see out of the front while standing- even today, train drivers in Russia must be stood up while driving. The Siemens Valero (ICE3) design had to be modified for sale to RZD for this reason as well. I'm sure I've read that Kestrel's prime mover was planted in a TEP70 as well, but blowed if I can remember the source.

  • Thatchers government took power and the political will to continue to project along with publicised breakdowns mean the killing of the APT. 15-20 years later we have Italians claiming they invented the technology and selling it back to us. Fucking travesty! That's 80's government for you.

  • @AppleOfGlasgow Oh no, that's just 80s British Rail, losing £2,000,000,000 per annum and cocking up everything new they built that wasn't called "Deltic" or "High Speed Train".

  • and semaphors

  • 3:15 nice to see a good old standed BR van

  • Thanks for posting this fascinating and important footage.

  • pity they never made it

  • Nice to see the Kestrel in action.

  • Around Easter in 1976 I was at Leicester station on a Midland Region railrover ticket. At around 11.30 am a station announcement was made for everyone to stand back from the platform. Before I could blink the APT came trundling into the station and sat there for about half an hour before disappearing off again presumably to Loughborough or Derby.

    It was quite surreal to see it in the flesh, and its front-end shape always reminded me of K9 from Doctor Who!

  • @xxxChrist

    i can see where you are coming from as well with the nose :)

    shame the APT didn't live up to the expectations in service

  • Amd dig the deltic making an appearance! This is what we used to be able to create - before british enginerring was abandoned and we started buying locomotives from the likes of Canada.

  • No, Kestrel was built in 1968, at least a year after the last 47s. It had a Sulzer V16 engine, unlike the double-six used in the 47s and Peaks. It ran trials on the East Coast Main Line and on coal trains until 1971, when it was exported to Russia. The reason the design was abandoned was that BR were moving away from mixed-traffic locos to purpose-specific designs, hence the HSTs and 56s which followed. Someone wanted to try ad preserve it, I think around 1995, but it had already been cut up.

  • I would have liked to have seen the APT-E and the Prototype HST

  • have you seen the engine of the prototype in the great hall at the natinal railway muesum?

  • Can still remember the first time I saw the HST prototype (i was about 7) it was quite common for a while

  • Real Shame......

    Killed by the Press... because they couldn't understand the technology... and wouldn't let BR get on with it..!!!!

  • @loony45 Absolutely right!!!!! I'm old enough to remember it and they absolutely slaughtered APT day after day then Thatcher pulled the plug some ay that's all she could do..... taxpayers money..................BUT the tilting technology was then sold too FIAT who are now selling trains back to UK operators

  • @loony45

    I find that jounrnalist world wide are of the same psychological type. If they have NOT seen something before they declare war on it.

    Here in Ireland, Dublin is building its first underground rail network and the journalists here are literally in a state of all out warfare against it. Why? Because they never saw a metro in Dublin before. So it must be wrong! Journalists are nature's most worthless scum.

  • got to love the music and the beards in the APT-E bit

  • The proto HST is very reminiscent of the old Midland Pullman sets I thought

  • woo darlington!

    and its such a shame the apt didnt work.

    i think britains railways are way too behind now :/

  • didnt KESTRAL end up in russia?

  • Yes

  • @themarcpearson

    though after that, her fate is unknown.

  • @themarcpearson we lost all info on her due to the cold war. eventually we were told she was scrapped in the late 80's or something and no-one bothered looking into it - turns out she was actually scrapped around 1993 - we could have saved her!

  • the movies is excellent, thanks you ★★★★★

  • That APT-E looks so far ahead of its time, I think even today people would turn round and shout WOW when it went past.

  • probably one of the most amazing diesels ever

  • It's not diesel, it has gas turbine engines, although the final APT-P was electric.

  • ohhhh *fail*

  • apparently they only withdrew the APT'S because they became uncomfortable so instead of improving them they B.R just left them in the storage sidings.

    thats where i think BR went wrong but i also think that the APT should be put back into service for another few years.

    i don't like the look of the HST though the final version that they came up with though is perfect. great video where did you get it from?

    5stars!

  • Oh how i wish the APT had workd.

  • Did Kestral get under that bridge ! it looked a very close thing.

  • Anyone get the number of that Deltic @ 3:43? Beast!

  • Very Futuristic, but far to ahead of its time

  • such a shame, we culd have been world leaders, in fact, we were, but this would have been amazing. I think that britains biggest downfall was not re building the infrastrucure in a more sensible way after ww2, as most other countries did. We feel the effects of this today with all these 'major engineeering works' on the west coast mainline.works'

  • @billyb4223

    Britians biggest problem with its railways is that its loading gauge is too small. Think about this the bigger the loading gauge the costs of operating a freight operation go down. As well as still using hook and buffer draw gear coupled with 4 wheeled rolling stock. I

  • That was true with APT

  • imo ultimatly it was the cost to upgrade the infrastructure to allow these trains to run at speed

  • What killed the APT?

  • Politics, money, lack of ambition. Simple as that. Except...it didn't really die, it was embraced by the Italians and sold back to us as the Pendolino.

  • Is that a fact about the italians? What else can you tell us please?

  • i think it was because the tilting system never worked properly... But i may be mistaken

  • Loving that 70's music on the APT-E video....

  • The Class 28 sitting on the RTC at 1:59

  • The Class 28 sitting in the background at the RTC at 1:59

  • APT-E & The Prototype HST were ugly

    intercity 125's much better lookin

  • hst-proto: oh i say, kitchen car's will be fitten even with microwave ovens! lol.

    very nice films anyway.

  • they didnt know it then but lucky buggers using the trains that are now rusting away that generations like ourself s would very much like to try 5*****

  • so long ago ! Brits rule!.

  • APT music kicks arse, what is it if it's not just a library piece?

  • Its great - squelchy pre acid!

  • Squelchy is a good description. 'Squelchy Neo-Prog'?

  • Imagine it dropped on the floor, along with banging train rhythms, now we're talking.

  • Dropped squechy bang-bang uplift groove that bumps. MmmmaaaH! That's soooo gooooD. Emotional Labour!

  • there was also the falcon which ended up at Ebbw junction to work iron ore from Newport docks to Ebbw Vale steelworks and then was cut up at cashmores in Newport I believe

  • My dad rode the Prototype HST from London Paddington to Bristol in 1973. Super vid 5*

  • that hawker siddeley kestral was too german looking for my taste

  • the Kestrel was a killer in 1967 it killed 47 people in the hither green rail crash because of its weight

    which broke the rails

  • Really?

    Hither Green - 5 November 1967.

    HS4000 Handover - 29th Jan 1968.

  • that is the reason why it was handed over

  • Kestral never went near the Southern Region, all testing was based out of Derby, which is in the Midlands. Hither Green involved a 201 Hastings Unit, not Kestral.

  • Thank god the real HST didnt turn out that ugly! Shame the public arent consulted anymore on how trains should be laid out/equipped ect.

  • 2:34 = exellent hehe back when they were the 'cool' crowd =)

    Shame about ditching the APT it was a promising design, well replaced nowadays by the widely used 390 "Pendolino" of which i love so much =)

  • KESTREL ,Flogged to the Russians, completely stripped and left to rust what a f king waste of money for a fantastic engine like that. B.R (Bloody Ruthless) or what ?

  • Kestrel was the prettiest of the British diesels locomotives.

  • It's rather a shame that the APT didn't catch on - it looks like they had high hopes for it.

  • yes, I remember it being touted as the next big thing, set to replace the HST. interest just sort of fizzled out when they couldnt make the suspension work properly. You can't imagine funding for such an adventurous project these days

  • The APT was never meant to replace to the HST...they were being developed along side each other in the early/mid 70s. The APT its self might not have caught on, but the principle certainly did, and hence we now have Pendo's all over the WCML.

  • Effectivley we sold the desgn of the ATP-P to the Italians, who some 35 years later, sold us the Pendolino

  • LMFAO, I found that extremely funny the way you worded it :D.

    It's so so true!

  • heheh - electronic brain

  • kestrel went to russia in the end , a friend of ours took it there as the project engineer from Brush

    wonder where it is now

  • Scrapped in April - May 1991

  • used in service on Ecml from Newcastle to London,Railway museum should have brought it back instead of the dam Jap bullet train

  • buy it,you will get points on your clubcard lol

  • every little helps!

  • Almost- Hawker Siddeley built the Trident, the world's first tri-jet aircraft. The Tristar was a much larger airliner built by Lockheed.

  • The Kestrel was a MOTH!!!!

  • @ 1:26 No Hi Vis..... Health & Safety would be having a field day!!

    @3:08 Gentleman of the press!!!?? Since when has anyone of the press been a gentleman.

    @ 3:44 Heads Out

    Microwave ovens hey They are good these days :)

  • true enough,the press are rude and arrogant,microwaves were expensive then,good comment

  • "Gentleman of the press!!!?? Since when has anyone of the press been a gentleman."

    Yeah, especially when they helped kill the APT. Bastards!!

  • lol !

  • hornby or bachmann should make the apt e and apt to commerate this era for the br

  • Hows the music eh. HAHA

  • i thought there were 2 prototype APT's one a gas turbine just APT and the other being electric from the ohl that being the APT-E

  • Class 55 Deltic at 3:44 .

  • Wouldnt it be great to see it fired up at Shildon,the sound of the gas turbines must of been awsome

  • Indeed, proberbly let out a mountain of smoke :P.

  • What happened to the beautifully streamlined diesel-locomotive at the beginning of this movie?

  • HS4000, or Kesteral was tested by British Rail all through 1969. After this it sat around at the back of a depot for a year, when it was then sold to the USSR in 1971. Its bogies were re-guaged to broad guage and sent to Russia in the same year. It worked in russia until the mid '80s, when it was withdraw. It spent the rest of its life in a russian scrap yard, until being scrapped in Spring 1991.

  • Shame.. I think it's one of the most beautiful Brittisch diesel I've ever seen. Nice and streamlined. Much better than the quirky appearance of class 25 and 27 or 31 locomotives..

  • i would like have liked to see one!

  • You still can see the APT-E, it is part of the National Collection and is on display in the NRM overflow at Shildon.

  • nice!!! shame they stopped the APT-E

  • i think that the "E" in APT-E stands for electric but i'm not sure.

  • It's Advanced Passenger Train - Experimental. APT-P is Advanced Passenger Train - Prototype. If the APT went into full scale production it would have been the APT-S, for Adavnced Passenger Train - Squadron, although i'm no to sure on this one, as on second thoughts it might have been Service.

  • I read that the Class 91's we originally going to be called APT-U, but that was abandoned because they didn't want any new train to have an association with the APT failure. What would the U have stood for?

  • APT naming is as follows:

    APT-E - Experimental

    APT-P - Prototype

    APT-S - Squadron, imagine a 91, Mk4 rake and DVT shaped like an APT-P and you've got an APT-S. Was to be brought into use on the WCML and eventually the ECML. Replying to a previous comment, APTs would have replaced HSTs on major routes (with HSTs going to secondary routes) including the GWML. They've been trying to electrify it for much longer than you think ;).

  • Would have been an amazing sight to see if it had seen expression. But in your mind, what would the U in APT-U have stood for?

  • I'm unsure, although the naming shceme above is the only one i know of.

  • Nope,it stood for Experiment

  • Experimental or Experiment, we could argue for ever. Which ever one is correct its closer than Electric ;P.

  • I've seen the Advanced Passenger Train E (1:03 to 2:29) at the Locomotion museum in Shildon, County Durham that is not far from where I live and entrance to the museum is free. Can anyone tell me what the E in APT-E stands for please?

  • Adavnced Passenger Train - Experimental

  • Kestrel was an absolute beauty.

  • i want one!

  • given to the russians to be gutted and scrapped

  • Kestrel was really too far ahead of it's time in many ways

  • woooo deltic 3:45. good vid.

  • Kitchens mircowaves automatic doors!!! It seems we have lost track in the last 4 decades.

  • They said it: HST for the business jet set. Not for the hoy polloy. Maybe that`s why the fares are so bloody high... London to York in a 142 anyone? Thought not.

  • I don't know quite why the HST was plugged that way in this film, but BR always intended the HST to be a train for everyone. The TGV in France may be faster, but it charges high supplementary fares, runs far less frequently, and reservations are compulsory. Advance purchase tickets here these days are cheap as chips - London to Edinburgh can be done for fourteen quid.

  • the kestrel cab looks like a plane cockpit!

  • Great video and 3 great locos.  Was that a Deltic passing the HST prototype?? Pity Kestrel never, er, got off the ground. It was too heavy for passenger services apparently. Fat birds don't fly...

  • yeah hawker-sidley didnt just make great bombers

    they made great power units aswell

  • Ha-Ha love the way the old hand APT-E driver applies the power at 1:54 complete with cloth in hand.....

  • I didn't know there was another prototype diesel 'Class 47-style' loco!

    And what a damn pity that the APT was short-sightedly abandoned by government. We would have had the second-best high speed services in Europe! (TGV in France was entering service in 1978)

  • On the Prototype HST, is the coach second from the front a MK1?

  • Yeah, I don't think they had got round to making the buffet car yet.