Here in Queensland, railway travel has been given a real boost with the new electric tilt train between Brisbane and Rockhampton over the last few years and the even newer deisel Tilt train from last year, travelling from Brisbane to Cairns in the far north of Queensland. The trains travel at about 160 km/h but can go faster. They have been a popular way to travel here, which is great to see. By the way, these new trains were built here in Maryborough Queensland (where I live) which is another great thing for the city, jobs etc.
…Someone should come to America and sell the authority on why we need such a conveyance. We’ve had test runs recently of tilting passenger trains. Believe the proto’s were from Europe.
You are both welcome to our tilting trains - all it means in Britain is that, due to our restricted loading gauge, you don’t have enough room to sit upright if you are by a window pillar on the Virgin pedal cars.
Big thumbs down and give us proper trains back please.
Kev
Yeah, and anything bigger than a pack of fags won’t fit in the luggage racks either…
This is very true. Due to the very design of these things, the side panels are tilted inwards so it makes the person sat next to the window tilt inwards…whether the train is tilting or not.
Cheers
Rory
…In all the discussion of trains that tilt back a few years or so ago when some experimental runs were done here in America I never once heard of that complaint…Wonder why that was not an issue with that one running here or maybe it was and wasn’t newsworthy. Sounds weird something would be designed with that space restriction…
The difference in loading gauge between the UK and North America is the explanation. The more generous North American loading gauge allows more play for a tilting carbody without having to restrict its dimensions too much.
…Am I assuming correctly you are referring to amount of space the vehicle has to do it’s “tilting” on a given curve…and the clearance for items along the RoW.
You assume correctly…
The loading gauge is the maximum cross sectional dimensions of a static vehicle that can run on a particular route…
As usual it’s more complicated than this, and the clearance to lineside structures is given by the dynamic envelope (aka the kinematic envelope), which is the loading gauge plus allowances for suspension travel and track movement …
It’s amazing what afew more inches in the loading gauge will do! Back in the late 1960s the French designed a set of cars for internal Trans Europ Express trains, called “Gran Confort” cars (and they were!). I’ve never found trains anywhere that match them for style, appearance and comfort. They were all built with future provision for tilting, which was never fitted, as on the French main lines they could travel at 200 kmh without it. But it didn’t affect the interior room at all! Compared to them, the TGV felt like a small uncomfortable train, even in first class! It was faster, of course.
The current (September) issue of the Australian “Railway Digest” magazine carries my article describing the Queensland Electric Tilt Trains, for those who can find a copy easily.
http://www.arhsnsw.com.au/rdigest.htm
Peter
I don’t want to be rude, but I must point out that 160kph is only 96 mph. There’s nothing really special about that. Plain Jane old tech Amtrak does 110 mph on the NEC and elsewhere. Decades ago back in the steam era there were lots of trains that fast. One of them, pulled by a Pennsy 4-4-2 supposedly hit 127, somewhere in Ohio, as I remember.
Better revise that comment, tpatrick, these are 3’ 6" gauge if I recall correctly.
Better revise that comment, tpatrick, these are 3’ 6" gauge if I recall correctly.
That is correct, the QR is 3’6" (or 1067mm, as we say here).
I think 160 kmh is a fairly high speed on that gauge worldwide, although I’d doubt is was a world record. South Africa at least tested some very fast trains between Johannesburg and Pretoria, and the Japanese run a lot of fast, tilting trains on 3’6" gauge. Sadly, 160 kmh is also the highest speed on standard gauge in Australia.
Peter
kjynch back again. Great to read replies. I do aknowledgr that 160km/h is not fast to world standards, but to put it in perspective, from where I live in Maryborough Queensland, years ago before tilt trains it would take up to 7 hrs to get to Brisbane (very slow) but with the tilt train it takes three hours which is the same as it takes by car to travel the same distance (about 280km) The really good thing here is that the tilt trains gave a real boost to travel by train that was not that popular before tilt trains. The tilt trains are fairly comfortable, with a few little extras like personel audio and your own tv with a selection of channels on the newer tilt trains. Food is not good though.