please empty your brain below
when I went to Shildon, years ago, the whole APT-E was there? Not clear from your photos, but that train only ever had two passenger/laboratory carriages. It was doubly doomed, being gas turbine, the French having already gone down the same dead end with TGV 001.

The "shortened" APT in conservation is the APT-P at Crewe. It's quite amazing either survives, especially the one-off E-Train, given how many classes tat saw regular service were entirely scrapped. It's almost criminal that no Blue Pullman survives.

Al__S | 22.01.17 - 7:35 a.m. | #

The photos seem to show both power cars (or one power car in two different places), and at least one of the twp trailer cars.

It is a bit hard on the APT to describe it as a dead end. The "E" version at Shildon was only ever intended as a development test bed. It was followed by the electric "P" version which did run briefly in passenger service but was plagued by problems, largely with the brakes and the weather.

A version with conventional brakes, but otherwise very close in concept to the APT-P, has been running through Darlington for over 25 years. It is the "Inter City 225" - the power of rebranding! The mark 4 coaches were designed to allow tilt to be fitted, but it is not needed on the lines they run on at present.

Timbo | 22.01.17 - 8:07 a.m. | #

You comment about the baggage van used to move Winston Churchill's coffin put me in the mind of Bodiam station on the Kent and East Sussex Railway. Since you last visited there in 2010, the railway has put on display the Cavell Van - the parcel wagon used after the First World War to transport the bodies of Charles Fryatt (merchant ship captain executed by the Germans for sinking a U boat) and Edith Cavell (nurse executed by the Germans for spying).

But the van is most famous for bringing the Unknown Warrior from Dover to Victoria before internment in Westminster Abbey. The railway has done a superb job of recreating the interior of the van as it was for that journey. I found it incredibly moving to be standing there on a fine summer’s day surrounded by the beautiful countryside in such an historic and important vehicle.

Marc | 22.01.17 - 8:24 a.m. | #

Hello Dg, On the subject of trains, hope you got to see this before leaving Darlington even though it is out on a limb
- Darlingtons_Brick_Train.asp
- david_machs_train_darlington

dg writes: Alas, too far out of the town centre - it's on the outskirts by a Morrisons rather than beside the railway line or station.

Lynn | 22.01.17 - 8:53 a.m. | #

Judging by your photograph, you wouldn't want to spend much time staring at Darlington's Town Hall.

Petras409 | 22.01.17 - 9:15 a.m. | #

Sorry you did not get to see the train, it is very badly placed as a tourist attraction, understand that it was designed to celebrate Darlington's railway heritage but it would have been much better located at one of the north's great railway centres (at York, Shildon or Darlington). Ps the train ride from Darlington to Edinburgh is out of this world, the views are amazing !!!

Lynn | 22.01.17 - 9:29 a.m. | #

So DG you went all the way to Shildon, to look at trains standing idle in sheds. I hear that Southern Railways has lots of those too, you could have saved a days travel.😀

Michael | 22.01.17 - 10:15 a.m. | #

Para 4: "spread along along..."

dg writes: Fixed, thanks.

John Maltby | 22.01.17 - 10:24 a.m. | #

yes, there's not much to see or do in either Shildon (which I remember from my childhood as a right old dump) or Darlington (which is classier but still rather sleepy) ... I grew up in Tony Blair's nextdoor constituency

back then Locomotion sat on the platform at Darlington station gathering dust and rather ignored and unloved ... in the 50's and 60's I guess we didn't have the luxury of money to spend on conservation, these days we seem to be a nation of museums

Caz | 22.01.17 - 11:09 a.m. | #

"It was doubly doomed, being gas turbine, the French having already gone down the same dead end with TGV 001".

More a cost one; the 1973/4 oil crisis was the main reason why it wasn't viable.

Silent Hunter | Homepage | 22.01.17 - 11:18 a.m. | #

I was always told (when I was little) that the APT made people sick with the tilting and that was one of the reasons why it wasn't continued.

Still affects some people on Pendolinos but doesn't seem to have slowed their spread.

Messiah | 22.01.17 - 1:18 p.m. | #

The APT was "too good". It completely compensated for the curve forces, but your eyes could see the curves and tilt. Result: mixed signals to brain, result nausea.
The Pendalino only partially compensates for the tilt and (for most people) that prevents nausea.

IslandDweller | 22.01.17 - 3:39 p.m. | #

Having lived in Darlington for a year I can confirm there is not much to do in Darlington. There is however a very large brick train but it is on the outskirts near Morrisons. http://www.nothingtoseehere.net/2006/08/david_machs_train_darlington.html Impressive though.

Rick | 22.01.17 - 3:56 p.m. | #

Tgv 001 and APT-E were both test beds and were fitted with gas turbines so the test could be carried out on quiet lines. Only the busiest lines get electrified.

The French had a fleet of GT trains built in the sixties, the last staying in service until 2005.

timbo | 22.01.17 - 5:26 p.m. | #

Think that the TGV got stuck on or came off a corner when being taken by a well known removal company on a low loader to Cranfield. I saw the lorry between Marston Moreteyne and Cranfield sometime in the 1970s.

Half a physicist | 22.01.17 - 10:03 p.m. | #

Visited friends in Shildon and went round the museum thought it was fascinating. Yes the train service into Bishop Auckland is dire.

Yes Messiah I am one of the unfortunates I've had to give up the Pendolino it really affects me.

Thanks DG for this and all your other posts a daily treat especially transport ones

Dave B | 22.01.17 - 10:37 p.m. | #

That's triggered a few memories !

I went on a series of APT test runs between Preston and Carlisle, then staying on board when it went back to Glasgow. I found it very impressive: there was no sensation of tilting, you'd only notice the horizon changing a bit, rather like being in a plane that was banking.

I'd always assumed that the tilting was purely for comfort, but found that wasn't the case. One car was empty and locked in the horizontal position because the tilt mechanism wasn't working. When walking through, even though I was taking great care, I was tipped head first into the seats !

Sadly, the suits lost patience and pressed the APT into passenger service in the middle of a particularly cold winter; its hydro-kinetic brakes were its Achilles' heel because they kept freezing, so that was the end of the project.

Network South East's 2HAPs were far more comfortable than today's hermetically sealed trains with their painted concrete seats, but NSE really didn't like non-smokers. Seats were at a premium because two thirds were allocated to smokers, and second class non-smokers had no access to the loo. At least having smoke free trains is one thing that's improved.

Gerry | 23.01.17 - 12:20 a.m. | #











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