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

Series 18 Episode 11 First broadcast 7th December 1981.

Horizon reports on the efforts of the British Advanced Passenger Train (APT) engineering team trying to prepare the new APT for its first run.

Unfortunately the start is missing.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• British
• Rail
• Advanced
• Passenger
• Train
• APT-P
• Race
• Against
• Time
• BBC
• Horizon
• Tilting
• Inter
• City
• Ian
• Holm

[nkt1]

Fascinating. Thanks for posting.

[stablestaple]

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

[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.

[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!!!

[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..

[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

[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....

[elrjames777]

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

[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 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]

@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!