Virgin Trains on the British West Coast Main Line WCML use tilting Class 390 Pendolino trains Moore's Trains photos

British Trains
My name is Craig Moore and I enjoy seeing trains thunder past, be they old restored steam engines to modern electric or diesel superfast intercity express trains. Many people have a fascination with trains from the child playing with his Thomas the Tank Engine Hornby railway set to the train spotting enthusiast. Britain is blessed with conservation groups who restore, maintain, preserve and run old steam engines, track, stations, points and signal boxes. They take the same care in restoring the passenger carriages as they do the wagons and trucks.

Virgin Trains on the British West Coast Main Line WCML
Virgin Trains on the British West Coast Main Line WCML use tilting trains called class 390 Pendolino. Tilting trains are used to increase speed on existing track as apposed to building specially built high speed track. As a train speeds up passengers experience centrifugal force, packages slide around and standing passengers can lose their balance. Tilting trains were designed to counteract this discomfort.

As a train negotiates around a left curve the train power tilts to the left to compensate for the g-force pushing to the right, and vice versa. British Rail invested heavily in tilting train technology to overcome the limitations of a rail network in built-up areas. They knew that the Government would not provide the money to build new high speed rail track unlike the French Government. The British designed Advanced Passenger Train, being operational from 1984 to 1985 and was the first to successfully implement active tilt increasing speeds significantly on tight rail curves. A decision was made not to continue with the project Advanced Passenger Train and the technology was sold to Fiat an Italian company who developed the Class 390 Pendolino.

Tilting trains like the British Rail Advanced Passenger Train were meant to help reduce the effects of centrifugal force on the human body but people suffered from motion sickness. The effect was felt during maximum speed and tilt. When this was combined with the tilting of the outside view and lack of corresponding internal sideways force, passengers felt ill. Their visual interpretation of what was happening on the outside of the train did not match the physical motion they experienced. This was over come because researchers found that if the active tilting motion efficiency was reduced to compensate for 80% or less of lateral apparent force passengers felt more secure.

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