APT-E, a 1970s Vision of the Future, whilst never put into production, was not short of achievements, officially still holding the record for the fastest speed attained by a non-electrified rail vehicle in the UK—152.3mph.
Britain's answer to high speed rail
Whilst Japan was laying hundreds of miles of track dedicated to its new Bullet Trains in the 1960s, British Rail took a different approach. They began developing a high-speed train that could run on existing tracks. To handle sharp curves, they designed the Advanced Passenger Train-Experimental (APT-E) with active tilting technology that would lean into bends like a motorcycle.
However, the APT-Ps that followed from the experimental design faced development delays, technical issues, and purported motion sickness among passengers, although the latter was largely a myth. Whilst the APT-E was a success, the APT-Ps received an overwhelming amount of negative press that impacted future funding for the project. Nevertheless, despite the project being abandoned, the APT's technology later proved revolutionary, influencing modern high-speed train designs.
Curator with a camera
Join Anthony Coulls, Senior Curator of Rail Transport and Technology, for a detailed tour of the APT-E, a truly enormous part of our collection with both a power car and a trailer car containing vast swathes of testing and recording equipment.
About the development
Born in 1929 in Surrey, Dr Alan Wickens was educated and worked as an Aeronautical Engineer before being appointed Director of Research at British Railways in 1962. He answered an advertisement for BR, and during the interview, he replied that he had no knowledge of, and little interest in, railway bogie design. It was later revealed this was the reason he was hired as British Rail's research director that created the tilting technology.
Atholl Hill was the lead designer of the APT and some of his design papers of can be found in our online collection.
How it came to us
This experimental unit was only intended for testing and was never used in ordinary public service, although it did carry office staff and the occasional dignitary on trial runs. When its period of testing was complete, in June 1976, it was sent to the National Railway Museum, York for preservation. It now resides here at Locomotion.
Gallery
