BBC Horizon A Race Against Time (1981) APT-P

[RailwaySeriesKB]

you can tell how quietly worried and jumpy they were at 16:53 because the train stopped!

[mikechick221]

so sad it took anther ten or more years te get train tilting and we hated stret from screch with new again and ley the track down all overagain but we got there just wish the make more tilting lines for tilting train and order more pendilenos how no on day they coud be tilting on the east coast

[OXLEYCRUSHER]

Try putting a coffee jar on its side and see if it moves very little on a Pendolino!!!

[1ns4ne1d10t]

If there was one thing British Rail were good at and it was wasting taxpayers money because it was all owned by the government. Millions possibly even billions got wasted on a tilt train prototype that didn't go into mass production because cost cuts were made on it and all that money got thrown down the drain for nothing when it could have been spared for education, road maintainance, businesses and other public services. Well done to BR and the government!

[elrjames777]

@1ns4ne1d10t As opposed to wasting taxpayers money because it is not all owned by the government. Private operators and Network Rail receive huge subsidies that dwarf those that were available to "British Rail": and both the operators and Network Rail are even less accountable to the fare paying public and the taxpayer than in the days of the Public Corporation :-) With Hindsight of this particular project, however, you are 100% correct about "investing in a railway like France" :-)

[1ns4ne1d10t]

@elrjames777 Its fine having the old style railway for freight and local services but we don't have high speed tracks like they do in France alongside the old railways to operate 150Mph+ trains for faster rail services. They keep trying to find ways of making faster trains on the existing railway which really isn't working well. Knowing the government if they did invest in a high speed railway they would probably still put level crossings on 200Mph+ railway tracks which is plain stupid.

[elrjames777]

@1ns4ne1d10t Yeah: they probably would: and then there are also dubiously expensive projects like: 'crossrail' :-)

[1ns4ne1d10t]

@elrjames777 Crossrail? In the recession? PAH! And they went on about Labours spending "Spend spend spend" during the last recession three years ago and what are the coalition doing? Snipping benefits, raising taxes and making the poor even poorer for their own projects just to throw away more taxpayers money. Whoever voted the Demolition in when the Tories were part of it needs shooting. Wow I wish I had a position of power where I could waste taxpayers money on myself....

[shoptothecaf]

@1ns4ne1d10t Far more public money was wasted by the last tory government providing vast subsidies to private companies to import tilting trains from abroad, who then to decide not to bother running them in tilt mode. The technology derived from the APT project has been used in a number of other applications not least the trains currently running on the east coast line, compared to the privatised railway, the modest sums spent on the APT Prototype returned reasonable value in the long term

[lazyfreedom98]

Dear, Imperialist

If you want to dominate world put it all on internet.

Anal butt plug optional.

Think.

[thehoff1982]

Thumbs up if you like the class 85 on a mixed freight at 19:36!

[nkt1]

Fascinating. Thanks for posting.

[stablestaple]

@nkt1 You're very welcome. Seems it's quite rare...

[chris27708]

The useless goverment owned british rail, the APT should have been around for years but for bad design and crumbling inforstructure on the railways at that time,

[1ns4ne1d10t]

@chris27708 ...and what a fine waste of taxpayers money from the government it was too. Always investing in the wrong things as per usual. Instead of investing in a smooth high speed railway like France has for 200Mph+ TGV's, ICE 3's and Eurostars they invest in a silly little APT tilt train to handle the tight curves and bends because they can't be arsed to update our tatty old Victorian railway for a smoother set of railway lines perfect for 155Mph trains... Typical of the government!

[simonpilk]

Did APT not cost £4m and the French spent at least 10 or 100 times as much money on their system. And still we are discussing HS2....

[lewisburglin]

Brilliant



[stablestaple]

@lewisburglin Agreed & thanks.

[smallritual]

what a great piece of history - thanks for sharing it! if only we could say to them... stick with it and don't rush the process. it's only teething troubles.

the end credits are also delightful.

[stablestaple]

@smallritual Thank you and you're welcome. Yes, it seems a tragic waste yet at the time I thought this was the start of a long and successful period of service. Agree about the end credits...genius by the Horizon production crew.

[stablestaple]

Pity I missed the start but I wasn't expecting Horizon to cover railways so there was a mad rush to get a videotape into the machine once I saw what was on! Absolutely, a tragic waste of time and resources...so now we have Pendolinos...

[tjshill82]

This is a great film. Very interesting to watch, yet truly gutting it failed to enter revenue earning traffic.

[shoptothecaf]

@tjshill82 It did and ran for quite a while as a relief train from Euston, it's relaunch was kept lo key after the troubles on its initial public launch, in the worst winter the country had seen for years..

[tjshill82]

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing this

[andrewhilly32]

Anyone know the music that plays during the film and at the end when the train is running?

[MosesMashomba]

@andrewhilly32

The music if the theme from the 1971 film "The Go Between" as composed by Michel Legrand.

[MosesMashomba]

@MosesMashomba

Put this after the last '/' of the youtube url: watch?v=pP5pAnG7Oqc

[stablestaple]

@MosesMashomba Well identified! - many thanks....