Tilting Train - Technology

Technology

Many of the problems with motion sickness are related to the fact that traditional servo systems respond inappropriately to the changes in trajectory forces, and even small errors whilst not being consciously perceivable cause nausea due to their unfamiliar nature. The original Fiat ETR 401 used individual gyroscopes in each carriage so there was inevitably a lag, even though nausea had not been a major problem with this train. The APT was supposed to overcome this problem by using gyroscopes at the ends of the train and a master/slave control system which defined a "tilting curve" for the whole train. It would appear that the technology of the era was not able to implement this technique as well as required.

Modern tilting trains are profiting from state-of-the-art signal processing which senses the line ahead and is able to predict optimal control signals for the individual carriages. Complaints about nausea have by and large become a thing of the past.

Some tilting trains run on narrow gauge railways. In Japan there are many narrow gauge lines in mountainous regions, and tilting trains have been designed to run on these. In Australia the service between Brisbane and Cairns by the QR Tilt Train claims to be the fastest narrow-gauge train in the world, running at 160 km/h (99 mph).