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A tilting train is a train that has a mechanism enabling increased speed on regular rail tracks. As a train rounds a curve at speed, objects inside the train experience centrifugal force. This can cause packages to slide about or seated passengers to feel squashed by the outboard armrest, and standing passengers to lose their balance. Tilting trains are designed to counteract this by tilting the carriages towards the inside of the curve, thus compensating for the g-force. The train may be constructed such that inertial forces cause the tilting, or it may have a computer-controlled powered mechanism.
The West Coast Main Line (WCML) is one of the most important railway corridors in the United Kingdom, connecting the major cities of London and Glasgow with branches to Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Edinburgh. It is one of the busiest mixed-traffic railway routes in Europe, carrying a mixture of intercity rail, regional rail, commuter rail and rail freight traffic. The core route of the WCML runs from London to Glasgow for 399 miles (642 km) and was opened from 1837 to 1869. With additional lines deviating to Northampton, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Edinburgh, this totals a route mileage of 700 miles (1,127 km). The Glasgow–Edinburgh via Carstairs line connects the WCML to Edinburgh, however the main London–Edinburgh route is the East Coast Main Line. Several sections of the WCML form part of the suburban railway systems in London, Coventry, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow, with many more smaller commuter stations, as well as providing links to more rural towns.
Virgin Trains was a train operating company in the United Kingdom owned by Virgin Rail Group, a joint venture between Virgin Group and Stagecoach, which operated the InterCity West Coast franchise from 9 March 1997 to 7 December 2019. The franchise covered long-distance passenger services on the West Coast Main Line between London, West Midlands, North West England, North Wales and Scotland, subsequently connecting six of the UK's largest cities: London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh, which have a combined metropolitan population of over 18 million. Virgin Trains had around 3,400 employees in 2015.
The Advanced Passenger Train (APT) was a tilting high speed train developed by British Rail during the 1970s and early 1980s, for use on the West Coast Main Line (WCML). The WCML contained many curves, and the APT pioneered the concept of active tilting to address these, a feature that has since been copied on designs around the world. The experimental APT-E achieved a new British railway speed record on 10 August 1975 when it reached 152.3 miles per hour (245.1 km/h), only to be bested by the service prototype APT-P at 162.2 miles per hour (261.0 km/h) in December 1979, a record that stood until September 2006.
Pendolino is an Italian family of tilting trains used in Italy, Spain, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Finland, Russia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the UK, Switzerland and China. Based on the design of the Italian ETR 401, it was further developed and manufactured by Fiat Ferroviaria, which was taken over by Alstom in 2000.
A balise is an electronic beacon or transponder placed between the rails of a railway as part of an automatic train protection (ATP) system. The French word balise is used to distinguish these beacons from other kinds of beacons.
The InterCity 225 is an electric high speed train in the United Kingdom, comprising a Class 91 electric locomotive, nine Mark 4 coaches and a Driving Van Trailer (DVT). The Class 91 locomotives were built by British Rail Engineering Limited's Crewe Works as a spin-off from the Advanced Passenger Train project, which was abandoned during the 1980s, whilst the coaches and DVT were constructed by Metro-Cammell in Birmingham and Breda in Italy, again borrowing heavily from the Advanced Passenger Train. The trains were designed to operate at up to 140 mph (225 km/h) in regular service, but are limited to 125 mph (200 km/h) principally due to a lack of cab signalling and the limitations of the current overhead line equipment. They are used on services from London King's Cross to Leeds and York.
The British Rail Class 390 Pendolino is a type of electric high-speed passenger train operated by Avanti West Coast in the United Kingdom, leased from Angel Trains. They are electric multiple units using Fiat Ferroviaria's tilting train Pendolino technology and built by Alstom. Fifty-three units were originally built between 2001 and 2004 for operation on the West Coast Main Line (WCML). They were ordered as 8-car sets, later extended to 9-car sets, of which some were then lengthened further to 11 carriages. These new 11-car trains were renumbered as the subclass 390/1. The trains of the original batch were the last to be assembled at Alstom's Washwood Heath plant, before its closure in 2005. The remaining trains in the fleet were built in Italy.
The British Rail Class 221 Super Voyager is a class of tilting diesel-electric multiple-unit express passenger trains built in Bruges, Belgium, by Bombardier Transportation in 2001/02.
The British Rail Class 90 electric locomotives were built for mixed-traffic duties, operating from 25 kV AC overhead lines and produce 5,000 bhp (3,700 kW). They weigh 84.5 tonnes and can typically achieve a top speed of 110 mph (177 km/h).
The New Pendolino is a class of high-speed tilting trains built by Alstom Ferroviaria for Trenitalia and Cisalpino customers, derived from a model developed at the time for the Chinese operator Changchun Railway Company and subsequently developed for other railway companies, using or not the variable weight technology that characterizes this family of rolling stock.
High-speed rail in the United Kingdom is provided on five upgraded railway lines running at top speeds of 125 mph (200 km/h) and one purpose-built high-speed line reaching 186 mph (300 km/h).
The history of rail transport in Great Britain 1948–1994 covers the period when the British railway system was nationalised under the name of British Rail, until its eventual privatisation in 1994.
In February 2009, the government of Portugal announced plans to build a high-speed rail line from Lisbon to Madrid; this plan was cancelled in March 2012 amidst a bailout programme of financial assistance to the Portuguese Republic. The project was valued at €7.8 billion and the government had claimed it would create 100,000 jobs. The line would link to Spain's Southwest Corridor.
The InterCity 250 was an electric railway project undertaken by British Rail in the late 1980s. The InterCity 250 train would have consisted of a Class 93 electric locomotive, nine Mark 5 coaches and a Mark 5 Driving Van Trailer operating in a push-pull formation. The British Rail project was cancelled in July 1992.
The Polish railways network consists of around 18,510 kilometres (11,500 mi) of track as of 2019, of which 11,998 km (7,455 mi) is electrified. National electrification system is 3 kV DC.
High-speed rail (HSR) has developed in Europe as an increasingly popular and efficient means of transport. The first high-speed rail lines on the continent, built in the 1980s and 1990s, improved travel times on intra-national corridors. Since then, several countries have built extensive high-speed networks, and there are now several cross-border high-speed rail links. Railway operators frequently run international services, and tracks are continuously being built and upgraded to international standards on the emerging European high-speed rail network.
The Cairns Tilt Train derailment occurred at 11:55 pm on 15 November 2004 when the City of Townsville diesel tilt train derailed north of Berajondo, approximately 342 km (213 mi) northwest of Brisbane, the state capital of Queensland, Australia.
High-speed rail service commenced in Poland on 14 December 2014, with the introduction of 20 non-tilting Pendolino trainsets operating on 4 designated lines radiating out from Warsaw. Polish State Railways started passenger service trains PKP Pendolino operating a speed 200 km/h on 80 km line Olszamowice-Zawiercie. From December 2017 there are two 200 km/h sections, 136 km long in total. Polish state railways PKP launched the high-speed service under the Express Intercity Premium (EIP) brand name.
The train protection system Geschwindigkeitsüberwachung Neigetechnik enables to rise the speed of tilting trains until 30 % above the limits for conventional trains. It is installed on numerous lines in Germany along with the traditional Punktförmige Zugbeeinflussung (PZB) intermittent signalling system.
References
- ↑ "Built to tilt". Rail . 2012-08-22.
- ↑ "A Review of Train Protection Systems" . Retrieved 2017-01-02.
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