They were... Until 1979... and what happened then?

They had over 10 years and still couldn’t get it right. They were trying to take too many technical leaps forward at once.

That's the Conservative party for you.

i hate to say this but it looks more like the cancel culture of the press at the time for the demise of the APT. she was guilty of many things but oddly not this one.

It was John major that idiotically privatised the railway

@@jamesperrin3255 very true, the mass privatisation trend did start with Thatcher

Actually Blame the socialists in the treasury! They pulled the plug on more than APT as they considered in the 1950's that the UK should not make anything but buy it from foreign competitors! APT along with TSR2, P1154, and many others had the money pulled by the treasury. Civil Servants advise - readers TELL, ministers what they will do.

and of course, the track upgrades were never completed to the high enough standard required for 140mph running, so the trains have been running at a top service speed of 125mph for the last 16 years

Acela Express does up to 150 mph on legacy right of way over here in the US. The next gen Acela is getting a bump up to 160 mph on at least 3 stretches (the two existing 150 segments in New England, and New Brunswick - Princeton Junction in New Jersey where the catenary is being upgraded to constant tension).

@@mj1234321 I'm excited to see how the new Acela generation will work out for America in general. After all: The trains were NEVER the problem in America. The problem was ALWAYS the tracks. I remember very well the disappointment when I travelled on the Acela only to learn that it runs at about 60-90 mph on at least two thirds of the entire route. I'm from Germany so I'm perhaps a little bit of a "spoiled European" when it comes to high speed rail. Did really upgrade enough of the track that the new Acela generation will actually make a real difference?

the rail network is currently state owned. (Network Rail) and the TOC's are privately run.

Funny that you say that because that's EXACTLY how it's done nowadays.

It is. That’s exactly how it is!

Beyond inaccurate….under her government almost every regional railways train was replaced, new trains for NSE, Networkers ordered, sectorisation led to a more efficient railway, great eastern electrification, east coast electrification and passenger numbers grew. You call that ‘totally destroyed’?

They've fixed the wifi now, it was beforehand only designed to run beam

You monster

Never did see the harm in dumping waste straight onto the track.

The Voyagers are even worse...

Sure ur not on the “vomit comet” aka voyager??

What poor state? We have one of the most extensive rail networks in the world with frequencies greater than most.

However he gets richer from many other things he runs!!!!!!!!!

Yes but its like you going to the shop and then getting someone you don't know to pay for your items. The bad things is the fact its the taxpayer paying not Mr Branson why shouldn't he pay for the stock. He charges of £100k + for a few nights stay at his island he can offered he should pay for it not the taxpayer

yes but why should the taxpayer for it whilst we pay for Mr Branson lives on necker island getting richer and richer.. its a disgrace in our railway

+The Endercube Because its the train leasing company who own the trains not the TOCs as if he can not be guaranteed he will always be able to run trains how could he ever see it feasible to buy trains?

but if Richard Branson owns the franchise he should invest in the railway.. why should he be a fat cat being spoon fed to him he should invest too

Nasty things those Pendolinos. Wasn't it partly made by FIAT ? As in "Fix It Again Tomorrow" Give me the old MK1s 2's,or 3's anyday. There is no need for these older coaches, condescendingly depised by the whizz-kid hipster types, to be hated. and at least you COULD clean the bogs. The seats all lined up with the windows, plenty of baggage space,etc. The awful 375/377/450s that replaced our faithful old EMU stock down south were and continue to be ghastly, souless cramped plastic perambulators. As for those hideous Thameslink units, and the S Stock...

The smell is why trainspotters call them 'vomit comets'

That’s Thatcher’s legacy. That’s the free market, baby. Dont blame Blair or Cameron, Major or Boris. Thatcher destroyed this country top to bottom.

Its beacuse you dont feel the tilt but you see the tilt That creates a conflict in the brain and you feel ill

This is why the APT failed. It zeroed out the centrifugal force.

​@@howlingwolvenBR should have exported the technology to american freight rail companies

She was a fantastic PM. Our problems began with Blair.

Get stuffed

+ garyoptica Thanks for your educated and well argued response. GO FUCK YOURSELF.

" re nationalise the lot ".....Ha , thats a laugh. What you people forget is it was nationalised for years and what was the result then ? British rail was just about the most hated and ridiculed organisation in the country. They could not get the trains to run on time then , what makes you think they would in future ? At least when in the private sector you can boot them out and get someone else in

@@scabbycatcat4202 BR was ridiculed with such venom by the likes of the Daily Mail etc. mainly because it was a nationalised system that right wing media loved to get at. BR did an extremely good job considering the money it was working with (the most efficient money wise in Europe) and I understand that state funding substantially increased once privatised (I did hear it claimed that it was doubled). BR had become expert at refurbishment of old trains due to the lack of money and came up with cost effective solutions like the old Gatwick Express using a class 489 GLV at one end and a class 73 at the other with BR Mark 2 air conditioned stock. Under privatisation the Gatwick Express was modernised by purchasing new trains illustrating how the need to be frugal appears to have substantially reduced (especially since class 73 has been recently re-engineered anyway). Under BR we had UK designed trains to be proud of like Class 43 IC125 and class 91 IC225 not forgetting many other slower but good trains like the old Thameslink class 319s (manufactured by BREL York). In the 70s a train of our best offerings (e.g class 91) went to a rail exhibition in Germany which would never happen now since we have nothing really to be proud of apart from the civil engineering involved in Crossrail for example since all trains are foreign designed (there are some projects being undertaken by Brush to convert trains but all completely new trains are not designed in the UK as far as I know). The railways were privatised for pure political dogma reasons and resulted in some fatalities due to the private infrastructure company Railtrack trying to make the rails last longer than good engineering practice dictated with the result that they cracked. The Hatfield crash led to Railtrack panicking and invoking countrywide speed restrictions until new rails could be fitted. Fares continue to rise (we have seen the same with the UK postal system - once privatised then suddenly the charges can increase.

@@Martindyna Your reply forgets one very important principle which applied to ALL nationalised industries;- NO ONE SPENDS SOMEONE ELSES MONEY AS CAREFULLY AS HE SPENDS HIS OWN . At least under privatisation there is a certain amount of accountability. Ultimately they can be kicked out. What can you do when a nationalised industry fails ?- Oh yes keep giving them ever more tax payers money ad infinitum !! No Thank You .

What's this a reference to?

Or the fact that the engineers had over 10 years and still couldn’t get it right. You have to stop throwing money at a lost cause at some point.

The truth about his tax avoidance. His lack of one iota of engineering or scientific ability and his use of the Blair link to finance everything he did wasn't in the public domain.

@@Denis-tg6jw your right it wasn't in the public domain then, but it is now.

apparently he was a wanker

Yep It was during testing of a high speed freight waggon. Didn’t put netting over the top and spent quite some time picking it up after 🤣

Joys of bi directional signalling good buddy.

Yes, and look at what privatization got us! Railtrack collapsed, the upgrades fell short of their promise, outsourcing the design and engineering to foreigners while leaving the cheaper jobs in Britain, only for the whole system to collapse in less than 30 years, but now with the government having to pay ~30 companies to run a railway that's rubbish compared to the rest of Europe (save perhaps Ireland, but we all know whose fault that is!)

@@AshleyRyan15 yes but rail track that did that was a PRIVATE company not a nationalised public one. network rail as a public company has done so much better.

@@damiendye6623 oh my god I meant to write look what privatization got us

Meanwhile the DFT will keep jerkin off to the amount of tax money they will earn from privatized companies that have totally FAILED! ESPECIALLY the intercity east coast franchise which couldn’t even pay the fees, NXEA only lasted for 2 years.. what a joke!

Have you been on a Pendolino? They're VERY comfortable. Also, the mk2 coaches are only 9cm wider than the Pendolinos, which is barely noticeable across multiple seats and an aisle.

The British knew how to build a train. Class 86, 87, 90 and 91 locomotives, mk3 and 4 coaches. And the icon that is the InterCity 125 HST! which is still going strong after 40 years!

***** Exactly! It's not like they didn't have a benchmark from which to work....Mk3/4 sets and HSTs are superior in numerous ways.

Its hard to believe the HST is 40 when you see how they've been refurbished. Even when compared to Pendolinos and Voyagers they still look modern. The only giveaway to their age are the old slam doors. (which add to their charm) I only wish they still had their Valenta engines with their screaming turbochargers!

+Ash 928 I agree! Sir Kenneth Grange hit it out of the park with that lovely nose shape.

@@steviesstuff101 Faster even

Their website says they'll be back on the rails soon

Randomaited it wasn't thatcher that privatised the railways in the U.K. It was John Major

Wasn't it her government that made BR hurry along APT-P so it was launched before it was ready?

@@Martindyna No. They hurried the project themselves in order be able to present something super "innovative".

@@MarioStahl1983 Please see the 2nd paragraph backing up my view. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Passenger_Train

The railways had huge investment under her government and passenger numbers grew for the first time in years.

We were once global leaders in rail tech, then we broke up our entire productive base, handed our national services over to billionaires, banks, and speculators, at great cost and much larger subsidies than the likes of British Rail ever got, while our media patted said capitalists on the back for ripping us all off. Conservatives at their finest. And yes I include NuLabour (now deceased) in that.

ArmyOfAll I hate how loss making BR, with lower passenger numbers than the 90s (the 1890s, that is), which are now being doubled by privatisation, BR famous for its soggy sandwiches, bland branding and dirty trains, is now idolised as the peak of rail efficiency, compared to the faster, more vibrant, more modern and much better served modern rail network by people like you.

Ah the old arguments. Yes BR passenger numbers had been falling, but you ignore the fact that they had been falling since 1914, and had bounced around sideways throughout the first privatisation era. You ignore the reason why for convenience. The explosion of automobile use. By the time you get to 90's we have 25 million cars on the road and millions more people. This combined with Thatchers destruction of a productive economy meant people no longer lived near their jobs. Combine over crowded roads, mass population growth, and longer distances to occupations and there you will find your modern passenger rises. Today we pay more to go from London to Liverpool on the day than you do to fly to Spain, with a good chunk of that money ending up in the back pockets of a handful of investors while we all get screwed. HSBC own's much of the rolling stock which it rents to the franchises. All extra costs from our pocket. Branson's virgin trains alone costs us £275 million a year in subsidy. Sufficed to say we get far less back in tax. The East Coast mainline was nationalised for a few years due to corporate failure. While it was nationalised it returned tens of millions. Labour has no intention of nationalising the services for us to lose them to private interests again down the road, this is an old flawed methodology that eventually gets undone. This time they will stay ours for good. www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/john-prescott-co-operatives-run-11965234 Like it or not, change is coming. If for no other reason than conservatives are old, they are dying, and not being replaced quick enough to offset the decline. ibb.co/khTsKQ P.s. I've yet to board a Virgin train that does not stink of piss in the halls while I eat my Ginsters sandwich that cost me near a fiver, bouncing around in said piss smelling hallway because there are no seats in peasant class while first class has several near empty carriages. All part of the service.

ArmyOfAll but the point is the first stage of privatisation, the hundreds of small companies, got is to a high point, then dropped due to poor world war conditions the big four ended higher than they started, and then BR dropped the ball and went down, down down. And the car arguement should apply more to privatisation, there are more cars now than in BR days. And cars weren't exactly prolific when BR dropped in the late 50s, not really in the early 60s. I'd like to point out that after Thatcher, BR was still declining. This changed as soon as privatisation was implemented. The idea Thatcher destroyed the already mostly dead industries single handedly is utterly ridiculous, as is the statement we have had mass population rise since the 80s, we simply haven't. And we pay more becuase there needs to be hundreds of miles of permanent infrastructure, and there is far more development in the rail sector than the air sector at present. Also, most budget airlines use aircraft dating back to the 60s and 70s they got on the cheap, so if Virgin trains was charging the much whilst still using BR Deltics, and early Mk2s, you might actually have a point. And any private industry has right to make a profit, profit is not a dirty word And our rail subsidy is about 3 times less per passenger than other comparable nations, so if you think we are paying a lot, well, we aren't. Labour hey? You are letting your politics get into issues where you make opinions based on what the party says what you should think, not the logical conclusion. By almost every metric, Privatisation is successful. And no, the ruling party of 7 years isn't dying. The latest generation is the most conservative in years. The only decline is bloody Brexit. I say this, by the way, as a political centrist, in other words, I HATE ALL OF THEM!!!!!!! Especially the conservatives, and especially Labour. The modern conservatives are stupid, condescending toffs. And labour is now made up of stupid, condescending Communists. PS. I think you are quite considerably overexadurating, I have ridden many a Pendilino from Wolverhampton to London and I haven't noticed any of these issues. Other than food, which is ridiculously overpriced on transport full stop, it's a moneymaking ploy, although it is somewhat more prevalent on airlines.

too many suits getting involved. just like they did to the british motorcycle industry and many others!!!

The problem isnt with the foreign built trains. You just picked hitachi rail italy, aka... ansaldobreda. Famous for the notorious DSB IC4 and Fyra V250s. Nothing was stopping you from going to Bombardier or Alstom or CAF or hell, talgo. The problem isny necessarily it being foreign, but rather you picked a shit manufacturer among many great ones to do your high speed trains.

Beardy Branson had to rely on old British technology and the Italians to do it, but there electrical systems are crap.

Lol, see East Coast Main Line. Now back in public hands and better than ever before.

Branson is a snake oil selling shyster. That greedy skunk should stay as far away from Britain as he can.

david jones but Italians gave us a iconic design of a pendolino it classy and cool. The only reason Richard Branson relyed on old technology is because back then it was the railways were privatised under British Rail and yes if virgin trains on they own they would have introduced new trains 2 years earlier.

Denis 1901 your only saying that because you don’t like Richard Branson and thought he was full of himself. look there, back in the 90s everything use to be great. Teletubbies was ruling the world 🌍 and produced a number one single, backstreet boys were at the top of the charts with they music 🎶. I really think back then we did recognise something was wrong with the railways and on trains 🚞 🚆 but we couldn’t do anything because it was privatised under British Rail but in late 2001 when the documentary came out Richard Branson the greedy shrink was finding a perfect train 🚆 for Britain 🇬🇧 and I really liked the design of the pendolino they really did put effort in the train. But you got you own mind and your own poetic. 90s was the best decide.

I’ve been on the Pendolino quite a few times and I’ve never experienced the smell or am I just lucky?

I went on one from Milton Keynes to London and I didn’t smell anything.. maybe they fixed the stench in their refurbishment

The tiny amount of time the train spends in curves? You have obviously not seen the West Coast Main Line in the UK. The northern section between Crewe and Glasgow is mainly curved. And yes the curve has cant, but that only allows for a certain speed.

The tilting's slight maintenance cost is heavily outweighed by the increase in speed and efficiency, and the West Coast Main Line is mostly curves, before the APT and Pendolino, the average speed from London-Glasgow was 80mph, whilst under APT it was 100mph, and Pendolino with the (half completed) WCML upgrade can probably do it faster

DEEREMEYER1 the trains have to decelerate for a mile or two before the curves, and accelerate for a mile or two afterwards. Repeat for nearly every curve on the WCML and you see why it takes a good hour of the time at least

They took his virginity; after all Branson was a fucking wanker

"Prince Charming" by Adam and the Ants. Just send me a copy of Viz by way of thanks. . S. The "AVE" trains here in sunny Spain run at 200 mph and no one gets sick. I fact, they're so fast that they rarely open the bar because you're there before you know it. Yes, really. Oh, and EVERYONE has a comfy seat and a good view. Countryside is boring as fuck, though!

I myself was curious to find out the name of the song. So I Shazam'd the section of music at 9:53 and it is called "Save a Prayer" by Duran Duran

>>Joseph: You're right! It would appear I got confused with the numbers, and my reply (Adam) refers to 9.33. I'll go without my porridge tomorrow, to sharpen my wits.

Joseph-Michael Andrews oh thank you so much,iv been trying to find that song for ages and couldn’t figure out what it was called.

DEEREMEYER1 Virgin is a big company, and owns many things, idiot.

They do indeed.

...but are being introduced 20 years after the Class 390, 25 years after the original Pendolino's in Italy, and 50 years after the APT-E

Americans aren't first in everything

What exactly happened

Gas turbines are very inefficient ,,the fuel consumption doubles the engine diesel consumption,,and you have reason,,are slow to accelerate,and the power isnt lineal. and the exhaust gas is at very high temp. Didnt work well.

That's why it was only used on the APT-E, not even the APT-P, or any other train. The original TGV was also going to be gas turbine, but was switched to electricity for the same reason

Yes, blame Mrs T rather than BR incompetence

@@Bungle-UK may I ask what your views are on Thatcher and her tenure as Prime Minister then?

@@JC-il6ps She made mistakes as everyone does but overall left the country and economy in a much better condition than she found it. The decline of traditional industries was inevitable in the face of global competition and British inefficiency. The railways in particular had much more capital investment in the 80s than the 70s and sectorisation is widely seen to have been successful. Plus, passenger numbers rose for the first time in years. She may not have been a natural rail fan but Mrs T didn’t favour privatisation of BR and recognised the value of an integrated structure.

Ross Duncan Yep, that's what they're cleared up to and one in testing reached 144mph. They are limited to 125mph however due to the UK's line side signalling but would be cleared for 140mph on some sections of the line with adequate signalling systems.

It's sad but you are right. The whole APT project was an echo chamber in which people applauded each other for "revolutionary" things that either nobody needed or had been done better elsewhere (in this case Italy).

I like the look of the Pendolino from the outside, they are nice looking trains, but they're cramped inside. I miss the days when you could lean out the window on a mk3 set hauled by a class 86, 87 or 90. And best of all, the HST which is an awesome British icon, which still looks amazing for a 40 year old train! I've not seen a class 91 in the flesh (or metal) but they still look great too with their mk4 stock.

Used to get this when I was a motorman on the old Southern Region. Passengers would wait for one of the old MK1 EMU sets, such as a CEP or a CIG, as it had comfy seats, luggage space, decent loos ( well if the privateering pirates could be bothered to maintain them that was, Connex were French and wouldn't know about flush loos I guessed ) and windows you could open. The rot started in the early 90's with those shitty 365/465/466 "Notworkers" as we called them. Nasty souless plastic crap such as the 375's gradually replaced our reliable old Mainline MK1 EMUs, and drew twice as much juice to do the same journey. They never did alter the timings much to make use of the new order's "Oh So Superior" acceleration. Recovery time. Wouldn't want to get fined now, would they ? Still on the line I worked on there were lots of Tory self centred twats that wanted these privateering pirates, serves 'em right. Shame about the other people. SO glad I'm retired. Haven't been on a train since.

The Mk1s were old and rickety, they needed replacing, and in their last years they were unreliable. They were also unsafe, the doors weren't only unsafe because they were slam-style so could easily hit someone, but also didn't even have locks so you could easily open one between stations. The only thing that could save them was the Class 424 'Networker Classic' idea, and that would've taken away all their charm anyway

At least it's not a Voyager. I personally believe the Class 390s are lovely inside...

Alstom Washwood Heath closed in 2005, so the extra 4 sets and 62 carriages to lengthen 31 of the original sets were built in Italy.

What??