Advanced Passenger Train - Demise

Demise

Political and managerial pressure to show results led to the three APT-P trains being launched in 1981 when, in hindsight, they were not ready for service; many technical problems persisted and reliability was not high. Predictably, the train suffered highly visible problems. Two APT-Ps were intended to be available for service at any given time, with the third out of service for overhaul and maintenance. The APT was often jokingly referred to by passengers as the 'Accident Prone Train' because of this.

Members of the press riding the first demonstration train apparently reported high levels of motion sickness and this caused much bad publicity; though it has been suggested by some, including APT designer Prof. Alan Wickens, that the 'motion sickness' suffered by the press may have had more to do with them over-indulging in BR's "liquid hospitality". None of the other passengers on this demonstration run or subsequent runs, noticed the problem. It turned out that the tilting mechanism was, in effect, working too well. It was perfectly compensating for lateral forces around curves, which induced motion sickness, since the eyes could see turning but the body did not feel it; reducing the tilt by a few degrees so that the curves could be felt cured this.

On one test run with the press, certain units of the train 'stuck' tilted to one side for parts of the journey.

The first "public" APT-P run on 7 December 1981, from Glasgow Central to London Euston, was successful. Even so, British Rail played safe by running a scheduled service out of Glasgow some 15 minutes later. Some APT-P cars suffered tilt failures during the return trip out of London and this was widely publicised by the media. The extremely cold weather also caused problems with the brakes freezing. The trains were withdrawn from revenue service four days later. This highly visible failure was eventually to prove terminal for the project.

The APT-P trains were quietly reintroduced into service in mid-1984 and ran regularly, the problems having been apparently corrected but the political and managerial will to continue the project and build the projected APT-S production vehicles had evaporated.

One APT-P set was kept at Glasgow Shields Depot and found use once or twice as an "EMU" to take journalists from Glasgow Central to Anderston railway station and back, for the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre. A second APT-P was stored in a siding behind Crewe Works. The "Glasgow" APT-P and the third APT-P were scrapped very quietly without publicity.

Williams notes that work continued on a new variant, the APT-U, and that the project was later retitled InterCity 225, perhaps to distance it from the bad publicity surrounding the APT-P. The Mark 4 coach design that was introduced as part of the new IC225 sets for the East Coast Main Line electrification is a direct descendant of the APT-U, and the coach was designed for the retrofitting of the tilt mechanism, although this was never implemented. The Class 91 locomotives that power the IC225s also take many features from the APT-P powercars, including body- rather than bogie-mounted traction motors to reduce unsprung load and having the transformer below rather than on top of the underframe to reduce the centre of gravity. Unlike the APT-P powercars, though, they were never intended to tilt.