127-410: The APT-E , for A dvanced P assenger T rain E xperimental, was the prototype Advanced Passenger Train tilting train unit. It was powered by gas turbines , the only multiple unit so powered that was used by British Rail . The APT-E consisted of two driving power cars (PC1 and 2) and two trailer cars (TC1 and 2). Each power car was equipped with four Rover-built Leyland 2S/350 gas turbines (and
254-849: A footbridge from Percy Main station and a segment from the Channel Tunnel . The former goods shed display was retained as the Station Hall. In 1995 the museum joined forces with the University of York to create an academic research base, the Institute of Railway Studies (and Transport History). It has also since partnered with York College to create the Yorkshire Rail Academy to teach vocational skills. The museum has also provided engineering apprenticeships and participates in partnerships aimed at delivering heritage skills training. In 1996
381-721: A Japanese bullet train . In addition, the National Railway Museum holds a diverse collection of other objects, from a household recipe book used in George Stephenson 's house to film showing a " never-stop railway " developed for the British Empire Exhibition . It has won many awards, including the European Museum of the Year Award in 2001. Starting in 2019, a major site development was underway. As part of
508-541: A campaign was led by transport historian L. T. C. Rolt and others such as the historian Jack Simmons to create a new museum. Agreement was reached under terms in the Transport Act 1968 for B.R. to provide premises to be occupied by a National Railway Museum which would be a branch of the National Museum of Science and Industry then under Dame Margaret Weston and the first English national museum outside London –
635-445: A collection of historic locomotives, which included Caledonian 123 , Columbine , Cornwall , Hardwicke , Highland 103, Midland 118 and Pet . Three others, set aside for preservation at Crewe Works , were scrapped in a change of policy in 1932. The LMS set aside one further locomotive (Midland 158A) before it was overtaken by nationalisation. It also succeeded in preserving a collection of historic royal saloons at Wolverton and built
762-407: A complete experimental train with the design goal to be not only to study the tilt system, but do so on actual lines. Wickens took the plans to Sydney Jones, who immediately took up the idea. They set the performance goal at the nicely rounded figure of 250 km/h (155 mph). In keeping with BR management goals to provide quicker travel times rather than just faster speeds, they also required
889-527: A conventional rival to APT. As it appeared the HST would be a relatively sure bet, BR's board of directors dithered on the APT project, eventually cutting the number of trains to four. This was later cut to three by the government in a 1974 round of budget cuts. Although the centre-motor layout was the simplest in terms of solving the immediate technical problems, it would cause significant problems in operational terms. There
1016-504: A curator be appointed for the commission's holdings (John M. Scholes), retention of the York museum, creation of other regional museums (not carried out in the way proposed), a small relics display in the old Great Hall at Euston railway station (done on a temporary basis) and a large museum of collections elsewhere in London. For the latter, the former station at Nine Elms was originally favoured as
1143-453: A diesel-alternator generator capable of supplying the minimum requirement of auxiliary power. The diesel-alternators were started using air motors powered from the train's air system, since the APT carried few batteries. The APT was designed for faster running than existing trains on the same track. At the APT's design speeds, it was not possible for the operator to read the speed limits on trackside signs in time to slow down if needed. Instead,
1270-424: A fifth for auxiliary power supplies), which initially produced 300 hp each but were progressively uprated to 330 hp. Two GEC 253AY nose suspended traction motors provided the traction on the leading bogies. The vehicles were manufactured from aluminium and were approximately 70 ft long (21.34 m), with articulated bogies between them. The APT-E made its first run on 25 July 1972 from Derby to Duffield and
1397-589: A glass case or mounted on a plinth. Coppernob at Barrow-in-Furness , Derwent and Locomotion at Darlington and Tiny at Newton Abbot were long-lived examples of this form of display. The first railway museums were opened at Hamar in Norway (1896) and Nuremberg in Germany (1899). These inspired talk of doing the same in Britain, both in the 1890s and again in 1908, but this came to nothing at that time. Indeed, two of
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#17330859469281524-416: A level of profitability, the government commissioned a report that resulted in the abandonment of many lines as part of the 1963 " Beeching Axe ". In spite of this significant restructuring, the organisation was still built on lines that were pre-war, with routings dating into the 1800s. Maintaining the network created problems with derailments increasingly common. In 1962, Dr. Sydney Jones was hired away from
1651-689: A move which was at the time criticised by Londoners. The building provided was the former locomotive roundhouse at York North (rebuilt in the 1950s), alongside the East Coast Main Line. The old museum and that at Clapham were closed in 1973. A Sainsbury's supermarket now stands on the Clapham site. Some items were retained in the capital and formed the basis of the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden. Some from York were re-located to
1778-583: A much simpler design, powered by conventional diesels and lacking tilt, but capable of speeds of up to 125 mph (201 km/h) and able to run anywhere on the BR network. This emerged in 1970 as the High Speed Train (HST), and development proceeded rapidly. As the APT programme continued, management began infighting. Experienced engineering resources were withheld from the APT project, using them instead to press ahead as swiftly as possible with what they saw as
1905-479: A new locomotive would be needed to replace the ageing Deltics anyway, or a simpler system for better performance in the suburbs. In 1965, Wickens had hired an intern, Dutch engineer A.J. Ispeert, and had him do some early work on active tilt systems. These would replace the passive pendulum-like Talgo system with a system using hydraulic cylinders that would quickly drive the car to the proper angle and hold it there without any swinging. A major advantage for BR use
2032-461: A new system using a transponder-based cab display was introduced called "C-APT". A radio signal from the train caused a track-mounted transponder to return the local speed limit. These sealed, unpowered transponders were placed at intervals of no more than 1 km. Approaching speed restrictions were provided at the appropriate distance, along with an audible alert; failure to acknowledge these alerts would result in an automatic brake application. C-APT
2159-455: A number of changes to the design were being made. Among the more problematic changes was Leyland's exit from the turbine market, having concluded that the concept of a turbine powered truck was not economically feasible. The company agreed to continue supporting the project anyway, including the release of a more powerful 350 horsepower (260 kW) version, but made it clear a production design would have to find another solution. In November 1972,
2286-438: A number of design points, and eliminated the need for the hydrokinetic brakes. However, the decision was made to go ahead with the original specification in order to provide the maximum possible speed. The government agreed to pay 80% of the cost of eight trains. It was during this time that other groups within BR began to agitate against APT, saying it was simply too large a step to make in a single design. They proposed building
2413-571: A passive hydraulic intensifier rather than a hydraulic power pack. Although APT-P used much of the technology developed on the APT-E, construction of the first APT-P was delayed several times. The first power car was delivered from the Derby locomotive works in June 1977, and the first passenger cars on 7 June 1978, a year late. The first complete train was not ready until May 1979. It entered testing soon after, and set
2540-399: A preliminary Heritage Lottery Fund contribution was announced in 2009, and seeking potential partners for a further outhousing project. There are other partnerships for development of the museum estate and the land around it (much owned by Network Rail) as "York Central" but the economic situation during 2009 put these particular plans in abeyance although a similar York Central project
2667-517: A production version. Jones found an ally in Graham Calder, who had been promoted to become BR's chief mechanical engineer (CME) in 1971. At the time they envisioned building two new experimental trains; one was essentially a stretched version of the APT-E with turbine power, and the other was similar, but powered by overhead electrical lines via pantograph (pan). As data flowed in from the POP and APT-E,
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#17330859469282794-540: A replica Rocket , with six replica carriages, for the Liverpool & Manchester Railway centenary in 1930, and a replica Grand Junction Railway Travelling Post Office. The Southern Railway inherited three preserved carriages of the Bodmin and Wadebridge Railway , long displayed at York and at Waterloo station , but otherwise had no policy of preserving redundant equipment. Ryde was preserved from 1934 until cut up in 1940;
2921-432: A report calling for a two-year programme to build and test a High Speed Passenger Vehicle, essentially an experimental car like HSFV-1 but for passenger use instead of freight. The original plans called for a single dummy body and two bogies to test the suspension and tilting system at high speed. They set the maximum tilt angle at 9 degrees, which could be added to any cant in the underlying railbed. The design programme
3048-550: A serious problem and it returned to the shops for a second overhaul in March 1974. Among the many changes for this round was the switching of the turbines formerly dedicated to power delivery for the passenger cars to add additional power to the traction motors, while at the same time replacing all of the turbines with an upgraded 330 horsepower (250 kW) version, improving total power per car from 1,200 to 1,650 horsepower (890 to 1,230 kW). Other changes included new motor bearings and
3175-578: A site, but what was eventually opened in 1961 was the Museum of British Transport in a former bus garage in Clapham . An official list of locomotives for preservation was compiled, and many were stored in sheds and works throughout the country, others being placed on loan to local authority museums. The 'Steam' Museum at Swindon still displays a large number of items from the National Collection, while
3302-467: A space-frame body for the power cars based on welded steel tube instead of the semi-monocoque construction used on the passenger cars. Contracts for the various parts of the design were sent out in July 1969. Hawker Siddeley Dynamics won the contract for the suspensions and braking systems, GEC and English Electric won the contract for the trailer cars, and by this time Leyland had already been selected for
3429-401: A spacing of several kilometers, but was a serious problem for a single train with pantographs at both ends. The obvious solution was to use a single pantograph at the front or back and then run the power between the cars, but this was outlawed by concerns over the presence of 25 kV power on the passenger cars. Some consideration was given to placing both engines back-to-back at one end of
3556-531: A test track. This was originally the main line to Nottingham , but now redundant after the Beeching Axe. This contained a 3 miles (4.8 km) straight section, many curves, and several tight tunnels that would be useful for aerodynamics tests. A set of maintenance buildings was built along this line at Old Dalby, and the line as a whole became known as the Old Dalby Test Track . Although construction of
3683-441: A wide range of models, some of which are operated on the museum's O scale model railway (originated in 1982). The National Railway Museum holds a large open library and archive of railway related material. This includes an internationally significant collection of locomotive and rolling stock engineering drawings from railway works and independent manufacturing companies. Copies of many of these engineering drawings are sold to
3810-590: Is Cité du Train in the French town of Mulhouse , although this attracts far fewer visitors than the National Railway Museum). The National Railway Museum was established on its present site, the former York North locomotive depot , in 1975, when it took over the former British Railways collection located in Clapham and the York Railway Museum located off Queen Street, immediately to the southeast of
3937-405: Is not safety against derailing or overturning, but rather only passenger comfort, the solution to increasing speeds further is therefore having the train car bodies tilt as well – while this doesn't influence the forces acting at the wheel-rail level, it keeps the lateral forces experienced inside the passenger compartment at a comfortable level even at further increased speeds. Talgo introduced
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4064-652: Is among the exhibits intended for operation on the National Rail network from time to time. The museum has imported several major vehicles for display: the Chinese Class KF7 4–8–4 locomotive donated in 1981 was built in Britain and the Wagons-Lits sleeping car donated in 1980 had been used on the Paris-London Night Ferry service. The single exception to the rule of exhibits associated with Britain
4191-412: Is considered a success, but the train could not be said to have been extensively tested; in three years it covered less distance than the average family car would in that period. In comparison, the first TGV prototype, TGV 001 , also powered by gas turbines, covered 320,000 kilometres (200,000 mi) between 1972 and 1976. While APT-E was still under construction, the team was well into the design of
4318-513: Is open daily from 10 am to 5 pm during February half-term holiday, then Wednesday to Sunday only from 10 am to 5 pm. Since 3 January 2023, the Station Hall is closed for re-roofing, repair work and redecoration, with some of the exhibits displayed there closed. Due to reopen late 2024. Locomotion – the National Railway Museum in Shildon , County Durham was opened in October 2004 and
4445-493: Is operated by the NRM in conjunction with Durham County Council . It houses more of the National Collection in a new building and a historic site around the former workshop of Timothy Hackworth and in the most recent full year for which figures have been published (2011–2012), it attracted more than 210,000 visitors. There are approximately 280 rail vehicles in the National Collection, with around 100 being at York at any one time and
4572-532: Is the Japanese 0 Series Shinkansen leading vehicle which was donated to the museum by the West Japan Railway Company in 2001 and which now forms part of an award-winning display, and is one of only two Shinkansen vehicles on exhibit outside Japan. Rail vehicles on display are exchanged from time to time with other organisations, and examples of new-build stock from the current industry sometimes visit
4699-654: The Glasgow Museum of Transport was also indebted to it, although many of the Scottish relics (including NBR K 'Glen' Class 4-4-0 No. 256 Glen Douglas currently at the successor to the Glasgow Museum of Transport, the Riverside Museum , along with the previously mentioned locomotives) no longer form part of the National Collection. The Beeching Report recommended that British Rail should stop running museums, and
4826-600: The Great Western Railway 's earliest broad-gauge locomotives, North Star and Lord of the Isles , which had been set aside at Swindon Works , were cut up in 1906 for lack of space and several other relics were similarly lost in subsequent years. From 1880, J. B. Harper of the North Eastern had been collecting material much of which was exhibited on the occasion of the S.& D.R. centenary in 1925; and which then formed
4953-630: The Head of Steam museum in Darlington . Exhibits from the previous museums at York and Clapham moved to the new site were supplemented by vehicles taken from storage at Preston Park in Brighton and elsewhere and restored. Creation of the York museum was largely in the hands of its first keeper, John Coiley , his deputy Peter Semmens, John Van Riemsdijk of the Science Museum and David Jenkinson . The museum
5080-642: The Pendolino . The extensive work on electrification carried out alongside the APT was effectively utilized in later non-tilting designs, including the British Rail Class 91 . The APT’s tilting system was reintroduced on the West Coast Main Line with the British Rail Class 390 , which was based on the Fiat Ferroviaria tilting train design and built by Alstom . However, certain features introduced by
5207-682: The Sea Slug missile and then for a period at Canadair in Montreal before returning to the UK and joining the Blue Steel missile project. When the follow-on Blue Steel II was cancelled in favour of the US designed Skybolt , Wickens left A. V. Roe because he "saw the writing on the wall". He answered an ad for BR, and during the interview, he replied that he had no knowledge of, and little interest in, railway bogie design. It
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5334-608: The Western Region between Swindon and Reading. It was also tested extensively on the Midland Main Line out of London St. Pancras and on the Old Dalby Test Track , where in January 1976 it attained a speed of 143.6 mph (231.1 km/h). The 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
5461-398: The 1846 Furness Railway No. 3 "Coppernob" locomotive, and the more modern express passenger steam locomotives London and North Eastern Railway Class A3 No. 4472 Flying Scotsman (added to the collection in 2004), its streamlined sister Class A4 No. 4468 Mallard and London, Midland and Scottish Railway Princess Coronation Class No. 6229 Duchess of Hamilton . Flying Scotsman
5588-456: 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 surpassed by the service prototype APT-P at 162.2 miles per hour (261.0 km/h) in December 1979. Development of
5715-428: The APT, such as the hydrokinetic braking system, have not been widely adopted. Following nationalisation of the UK's railways in 1948, British Railways , as it was then known, faced significant reductions in passenger numbers as the motor car rapidly became more popular through the 1950s and 60s. By 1970, passenger numbers were roughly half what they had been immediately prior to World War II . In an attempt to maintain
5842-522: The APT-E unit minus cabs, and the whole set had to be hauled by a locomotive. Following the abandonment of the APT project, all three carriages were scrapped in 1985. The set was formed as follows: Advanced Passenger Train 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
5969-527: The Director of the NRM. Concerns about the condition of the concrete roof structure on the main building brought forward major changes to the museum in 1990. To maintain a presence at York, the former York goods depot across Leeman Road, already in use as a museum store (the Peter Allen Building), was configured to display trains as if in a passenger station, and this together with the adjacent South Yard
6096-570: The Great Western's City of Truro , London and North Western Railway Columbine and London, Brighton and South Coast Railway B1 Class Gladstone . The GWR assembled a valuable collection of small objects, mounted privately in a long corridor at Paddington station , and in 1925 it built a replica of North Star . It preserved City of Truro and Tiny in 1931 and purchased Shannon for preservation in 1946. The LMS had its own collection of small objects at Euston . It also began to build up
6223-576: The Museum Garden was created incorporating a 7 + 1 ⁄ 4 in ( 184 mm ) gauge ridable miniature railway . A playground was also added. Continued concern over the condition of the remaining 1950s buildings on the site led to their replacement by The Works in 1999. This gave several functional areas: the Workshop , for maintenance of rolling stock; the Workshop Gallery , from which
6350-555: The Museum of the play of E. Nesbit 's The Railway Children , awarded five stars in The Guardian . Following this success, it was repeated in 2009, from 23 July to 3 September, and the museum provided locomotives for subsequent performances at Waterloo International station and in Toronto . Major plans under the name "NRM+" were made for refurbishing the Great Hall display, for which
6477-563: The Tank Engine books were assured a permanent place in the NRM's collection of historical railway books, due to their role in maintaining children's interests in railways. In 1991, Christopher Awdry chose to fictionalise this event in Thomas and the Great Railway Show , where Thomas (the most iconic of Awdry's characters) was made an honorary member of the NRM collection by Sir Topham Hatt and
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#17330859469286604-587: The Tokyo-Osaka Shinkansen line was operating from 1964 to huge success. The Shinkansen provided a smooth ride at speeds as high as 125 mph (201 km/h) by laying new lines dedicated to high speed travel. BR's most used route, the WCML, had in the order of 6 million passengers a year between London and Manchester , a far cry from the Tokyo-Osaka's 120 million. Funding for a new line for high speed use
6731-526: The Train Control Project. Another of Jones' many goals for the APT was that it would not cause additional wear on the lines. Instantaneous loads on the railbed vary with the square of speed, so a faster train would greatly increase road wear. Offsetting this effect required the train to meet stringent weight limits, and eliminated the possibility of using conventional diesel engines , which were simply too heavy. The team selected gas turbine power as
6858-410: The UK speed record at 162.2 miles per hour (261.0 km/h) in December 1979, a record that stood until beaten by a Class 373 Eurostar in July 2003. Two additional examples were delivered, each with minor changes, one in late 1979, and the last in 1980. Initially proposed in the 1960s, and given the go-ahead in the early 1970s, the design was now significantly late. Long delays in the production of
6985-506: The York Central redevelopment which will divert Leeman Road, the National Railway Museum will be building a new entrance building to connect the two separate parts of the museum together. At the same time, the space around the museum was to be landscaped to provide public spaces. In 2020, architectural practice Feilden Fowles won an international competition to create the museum's new £16.5 million Central Hall building—a key element of
7112-448: The addition of a small seating area to the passenger car for VIP use. Contract negotiations over high speed rail had concluded in the summer of 1973, just in time for the modified three-car APT-E to emerge from the shop in August 1973. The train then started a testing series lasting eight months, covering details of the suspension, braking, curve performance and drag. However, reliability was
7239-563: The basis of a museum opened at York by the London and North Eastern Railway in 1928 under the curatorship of E. M. Bywell. The smaller exhibits were housed in the old station buildings and the rolling stock and other large exhibits in the former locomotive erecting and repair shops of the old York and North Midland Railway (demolished after the museum closed). Despite this however, the locomotives were displayed on short lengths of track acting as plinths, very much in traditional museum style. It
7366-435: The car would render it dynamically unstable. They needed more room to spread the parts out, so the decision was made to roughly double the length of the power cars. This turned out to be easy to do; the frameworks already under construction at Metro-Cammell simply had additional sections of steel tube inserted and construction was barely affected. The POP cars were skinless, topped with a space frame holding ballast to simulate
7493-440: The concept of a critical speed at which point hunting would become a problem. This work was then extended to the unique two-axle bogieless car designs used on the BR freight network, where the problem was further modified by the dynamics of the entire vehicle. Wickens concluded that a properly damped suspension system could eliminate the problem. The key realization was that the suspension had to be both vertical, as it had been in
7620-501: The curve and the body swinging out, and then swung past this angle and then oscillated briefly until settling at the right angle. When traversing a series of curves, like in a switchyard, it tended to swing about alarmingly. Although a number of semi-experimental designs of the 1970s made use of it, like the UAC TurboTrain , the concept was not widely used. In 1964, a number of BR's formerly-dispersed research groups were organised into
7747-447: The design also started. Sited behind the main offices at the Derby labs, Kelvin House, the new facilities included a roller rig for testing the engines, a brake dynamometer and various test rigs for testing the suspension and tilt systems. The new lab was opened on 26 October 1970. Additionally, a 13.25 miles (21.32 km) section of track between Melton Mowbray and Edwalton was purchased as
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#17330859469287874-509: The earliest era of photography to the modern day. These include official collections from railway companies and collections from enthusiasts like Eric Treacy and H. Gordon Tidey . In 1999/2000 the Museum began to collect recordings of former railway staff for a National Archive of Railway Oral History. It also holds the archive of steam train recordings by Peter Handford . In 2009 The Forsythe Collection of travel and transport ephemera
8001-456: The effect of making the lateral forces more inline with the floor, reducing sideways forces. Because larger amounts of cant are more difficult to construct and maintain, and also because of the need to account for slower-moving traffic or the possibility of a train coming to a stand within the curve (both of which cases would consequently experience a force to the inside of the curve, a condition known as cant excess ), long experience had shown that
8128-413: The end of the platform. Although all auxiliary equipment such as lighting, air conditioning and air compressors was powered by motor alternators driven from the 25 kV overhead line, it was recognised that if there were a power failure, conditions in the passenger vehicles would quickly become unbearable and even unsafe. Each driving van trailer i.e. the leading and trailing vehicles, was equipped with
8255-493: The engines were progressively upgraded to 330 horsepower (250 kW). After many months studying various transmission systems, with time on the definition phase ending they finally decided to use an electric transmission, like a diesel-electric locomotive. Finally, due to schedule pressure, it was decided not to use a single articulated bogie between the cars, and two conventional bogies would be used on each car. Jim Wildhamer, recently hired from Westland Helicopters , designed
8382-470: The engines. Over time a number of these contracts were withdrawn and the teams took the design in-house, cancelling the suspensions contract with Hawker Siddeley in February 1970. Design of the bogies was taken over with the physical construction contracted to British Rail Engineering, while the power car construction was let to Metro-Cammell . While this work was underway, work on an experiential facility for
8509-431: The first practical design for a tilting carriage in the late 1950s. This consisted of a single bogie placed between the train cars with the car bodies suspended from an A-frame centered on the bogie with a pivot near the top. When the train rounded a bend, the centrifugal forces caused the car body to swing out like a pendulum, reaching the proper tilt angle naturally. However, this system had a distinct delay between entering
8636-492: The heritage railway movement to assist with their new build locomotive and restoration projects. They are also sold to modellers who can use the drawing to produce accurate scale models. The library holds more than 20,000 books and 800 journals of which around 300 are active. The archive also holds a large collection of technical and test records, as well as timetables including a large number of Bradshaw timetables . The archives also hold some 1.75 million photographs covering
8763-578: The late 19th century, the National Collection today results from the fusion of two long-running official initiatives. One was led by the State museums sector, evidencing pioneering technology, and the other by the railway industry, in which the key contribution came from the North Eastern Railway as successors to the historic Stockton and Darlington Railway . What became the Science Museum collection
8890-446: The main hall to the Workshop Gallery, the Museum Inclinator was constructed. Besides its primary function, this also served to demonstrate the workings of a funicular railway . To that end its workings were exposed in the style of a larger open air funicular railway, rather than being concealed in the fabric of the building as is more normal for intramural lifts. It ceased working due to lack of spare parts, and with no plans for repair it
9017-402: The maximum amount of cant that could be applied to lines with mixed traffic was 6.5 degrees. Given the curve radii typically encountered on the WCML, this meant that even with the maximum permissible amount of cant applied, speeds couldn't be increased much above the 100 mph (161 km/h) range without once again experiencing excessive lateral forces. As the initial factor limiting speeds
9144-491: The museum commissioned a working replica of Stephenson's Rocket for the following year's Liverpool and Manchester Railway 150th anniversary. This has since represented the museum at events around the world. Another working replica was added to the collection for the 150th anniversary of establishment of the Great Western Railway in 1985: that of the 7 ft ( 2,134 mm ) broad gauge locomotive Iron Duke . In 1990, The Rev. W. Awdry 's Railway Series Thomas
9271-588: The museum for short periods. Other physically large exhibits are the Stockton and Darlington Railway Gaunless Bridge and several stationary winding engines used on railway inclines. The many other two and three-dimensional elements of the collection include signalling equipment, road vehicles, ship models, posters , drawings and other artwork, tickets , nameplates, staff uniforms, clocks , watches , furniture and equipment from railway companies' hotels , refreshment rooms and offices (including company seals ) and
9398-498: The museum had a high-profile campaign, supported by the National Heritage Memorial Fund , to purchase Flying Scotsman which arrived at the Museum as the climax of Railfest. The first stage of a new centre providing easy access to the museum's Library and Archives, called "Search Engine", opened at the end of 2007. From 18 July to 23 August 2008, a popular new venture was the staging by York Theatre Royal at
9525-414: The museum's Vision 2025 masterplan. In January 2023, the museum's Station Hall (a Grade II listed "former goods station built between 1875–77") was closed for an estimated 18 months for "urgent structural repair" which was to include the installation of a new roof over that area. The National Railway Museum has over 6,000 objects on display of which around 100 are locomotives or rolling stock which tell
9652-399: The new Derby Research Division . It was here that the final work on Wickens' HSFV was being developed. At first there was some argument about whether or not a high-speed train would be supported; in the aftermath of the 1963 Beeching Axe it was not clear what size of network the government was willing to support, and whether a new design should be aimed at higher-speed intercity service, where
9779-718: The only other locomotive preserved by the Southern was Boxhill in 1947. ( Gladstone was preserved by the Stephenson Locomotive Society as a private initiative and much later (in 1959) donated to the British Transport Commission .) The nationalisation of British Railways in 1948 gave the opportunity for a more consolidated approach and a report was produced by the British Transport Commission in 1951. Amongst other things this recommended
9906-497: The other engine would be fed power through a coupling along the roof. Power was converted to direct current by ASEA thyristors , supplying four 1 megawatt (1,300 hp) DC traction motors mounted in each power car. The traction motors were moved from the bogies to inside the car body, thereby reducing unsprung weight. The motors transmitted their power through internal gearboxes, cardan shafts and quill final drives . Other changes suggested by experience on APT-E included changes to
10033-463: The past when based on leaf springs , but also horizontally to avoid small displacements triggering oscillation. Computers were used to simulate the motion and develop rules for how much damping would be needed to avoid the problem for any given speed. By 1964 this work had produced the first High Speed Freight Vehicle , HSFV-1, a bogieless freight car capable of travelling safely at speeds up to 140 mph (225 km/h). The same work suggested there
10160-515: The plans changed to build four electric versions for operation on the WCML, and another two turbine versions. From that point the turbine versions fell progressively further behind, and were eventually cancelled. This may have been a blessing in disguise; the 1973 oil crisis caused fuel prices to rise as much as three times, and turbine engines were notoriously thirsty; the TurboTrain used between 50 and 100% more fuel than conventional sets running on
10287-541: The prototype meant that the brake units had to be stored for an extended period before being installed. The change from oil to water-glycol mix required the cylinders to be covered internally with an anti-corrosion coating, which broke down during storage. In testing the cylinders repeatedly failed, and the loss of pressure caused the train to take nearly as long to slow from 25 mph to a standstill as it did to slow from 125 mph to 25 mph. During commissioning, because of this and other development issues, every axle on
10414-488: The public can look down on this work; a Working Railway Gallery , giving an insight into current and recent operation including a balcony overlooking York railway station hosting a set of monitors showing live feeds from the monitors at York IECC ; and the Warehouse which provides an innovative open storage area, which has proved popular with both public and museum professionals. In order to provide step-free access from
10541-421: The railway station; since then, the collection has continued to grow. The museum is accessible on foot from York railway station . A "roadtrain" runs from the city centre (near York Minster ) to the museum on Leeman Road during half-term, holidays and summer. York Park and Ride also serve the museum from the car park entrance, on Line 2 (Rawcliffe Bar-York). Admission to the museum has been free since 2001. It
10668-475: The remainder divided between Locomotion at Shildon and other museums and heritage railways . The earliest are wagonway vehicles of about 1815. The permanent display includes "Palaces on Wheels", a collection of Royal Train saloons from Queen Victoria 's early trains through to those used by Queen Elizabeth II up to the 1970s, among them some of the first rail vehicles to be set aside for preservation. Other key exhibits normally to be seen at York include
10795-498: The return and similar modification of the second power car, formerly used at the lab. The rebuilt four car train returned to service in June 1974. On 10 August 1975 it hit 152.3 mph (245.1 km/h) on the Western Region between Swindon and Reading, setting the UK record. It then set the route record from Leicester to London St. Pancras in 58 minutes 30 seconds on 30 October 1975, at an average speed of just over 101 miles per hour (163 km/h) through this twisty route. It
10922-638: The same routes. Leyland's use of a recuperator improved this considerably, but proved a maintenance problem. With the decision to move primarily to electrification made in November 1972, Jones began building a larger management team to carry the design forward to service. This resulted in the April 1973 transfer of the design from the research division to the Office of the Chief Mechanical and Electrical Engineer. A review
11049-494: The service prototypes dragged on, and by the late 1970s the design had been under construction for a decade and the trains were still not ready for service. The election of Margaret Thatcher brought matters to a head and she alluded to funding cuts for the project. Facing the possibility of cancellation, BR management decided to put the prototypes into service, with the first runs along the London – Glasgow route taking place in December 1981. The problems were eventually solved and
11176-558: The solution, initially considering the Rolls-Royce Dart . When the funding was secured a number of design notes were still not finalised, so the timeline was stretched into July 1971 to provide extra time for the project definition stage. By May 1969 these issues had been decided and the final design emerged. The experimental train would have four cars; two power cars placed at either end, and two passenger cars between them filled with experimental measurement and recording systems. During
11303-423: The stories for Britain's railway innovation. The collection also includes fine jewellery worn by railway queens, models of planes, boats and hovercraft, and experimental technologies such as Louis Brennan 's Gyroscopic Mono-rail car. It is the largest museum of its type in Britain, attracting 782,000 visitors during the 2018/19 financial year (the largest in the world in terms of floor area of exhibition buildings
11430-416: The time Jones was arranging funding, an experimental engine built by Leyland for trucks became available, which was designed to be much less expensive. The Dart was dropped, and power would be supplied by four 300 horsepower (220 kW) Leyland 2S/350 gas turbines in each power car, along with a fifth turbine connected to a generator to power the equipment in the passenger cars. During the testing period
11557-405: The train apart. The passenger cars retained the articulated design, but a number of changes were made due to experience on APT-E. Finally, a system that would cause the tilt system to fail into the upright position was desired, as APT-E had failed into a tilted position on several occasions. As part of the same review, the team noticed that a slight reduction in maximum speed would greatly simplify
11684-582: The train to round corners 40% faster. They named the proposal the Advanced Passenger Train. Jones took the proposal to the BR chairman, Stanley Raymond, who liked the idea. However, the board was unable to provide enough funding to develop it, and encouraged Jones to approach the Ministry of Transport for additional funding. Jones did so, and spent the next two years walking the corridors of Whitehall when one civil servant after another agreed that it
11811-414: The train was relatively straightforward, a number of more serious problems appeared in the power and control systems. Thus the decision was made to build two additional power cars as unfinished frameworks with no power. These cars would instead be hauled by conventional locomotives to provide data on the tilting and braking systems as well as the dynamics of the vehicles. A contract for the additional two cars
11938-408: The train, but concerns were raised over excessive buckling forces when pushing the train at high speeds with the tilt feature active. So, finally, the design team chose to place the engines back-to-back in the centre of the train. The two engines would be identical and both would carry a pantograph to pick up power, but in normal operation only the rear of the two engines would raise its pantograph, and
12065-410: The trains quietly reintroduced in 1984 with much greater success. By this time the competing High Speed Train , powered by a conventional diesel engine and lacking the APT's tilt and performance, had gone through development and testing at a rapid rate and was now forming the backbone of BR's passenger service. All support for the APT project collapsed as anyone in authority distanced themselves from what
12192-531: The trains ran faster. Studying the increase in ridership due to the introduction of the British Rail Class 55 "Deltic" engines on the East Coast Main Line , and the effects of electrification on the WCML which improved journey times 20 to 30%, they concluded that every 1 mile per hour (1.6 km/h) increase in speed would result in a 1% increase in passengers. This basic rule was apparently proven in Japan, when
12319-531: The trains was modified and exchanged. National Railway Museum The National Railway Museum ( NRM ) is a museum in York , England, forming part of the Science Museum Group . The museum tells the story of rail transport in Britain and its impact on society. It is the home of the national collection of historically significant railway vehicles such as Mallard , Stirling Single , Duchess of Hamilton and
12446-415: The various parts of the prospective design. The "POP" acronym was soon rendered inaccurate when a passenger car was added to make a three-car train, at which time the power cars were also given bodies. The POP underwent a number of changes, notably trialling different bogie designs, over its lifetime. While POP was proving the basic concepts, construction of the test train continued at the Derby lab. The set
12573-418: The vertical suspension from conventional hydraulic shock absorbers to air bags, which would both improve the ride quality and have lower maintenance requirements. For service reasons, the power cars were redesigned to have their own bogies in a Bo-Bo arrangement, so they could be easily removed from the train, unlike the former articulated design that connected adjacent cars together and made it difficult to split
12700-489: The weapons department at R.A.E. Farnborough with the eventual aim of having him take over as BR's research lead from Colin Ingles, who retired in 1964. Looking into the derailment problem, they found that much of the problem could be traced to a problem known as hunting oscillation . This was well known in the railway world, but tended to happen only at high speeds. On the BR network, especially on freight cars with worn wheels, it
12827-426: The website recommends pre-booking archive materials at least 24 hours in advance. The majority of its collections have been listed on its website for people to view what materials are available prior to their visit. For those people that cannot visit the museum itself there is a research service offered by the museum called Inreach . Although there had been amateur attempts to establish a national railway museum from
12954-433: The workings of a steam locomotive. The new museum received over a million visitors in its first year and was favourably received by critics. Significant events of 1979 were the restoration of a train of appropriate vehicles to mark the centenary of on-train catering and an exhibition to mark the centenary of railway electric traction which drew attention to the museum's important collections in this area. Also in 1979
13081-690: Was a great idea but that it was really the job of someone else to approve it. In spite of being repeatedly put off, Jones persisted, especially with Government Chief Scientist, Solly Zuckerman , to arrange a stable funding system for the entire topic of railway research. This was finalised as the Joint Programme between the Ministry of Transport and the British Railways Board, sharing the costs 50:50. The Programme would run sixteen years from January 1969 to March 1985. The first two programmes were APT and
13208-406: Was a passage through the power cars that connected the two-halves of the train, but it was noisy, cramped and not permitted for passengers. Instead, each end of the train now required its own dining car and similar facilities. The split design also presented problems in the stations, where only the two ends of the platforms could now be used, whereas normal equipment could park with the locomotives off
13335-437: Was acquired for the collection. Many of the museum's artworks and posters can also be viewed through Search Engine although these are now displayed in a series of temporary exhibitions in the museum's new art gallery which opened in 2011. The Search Engine facility opened in late 2007 and is open from 10:00 to 17:30 Wednesday to Saturday. The archive and library collections can be viewed by anyone without an appointment although
13462-540: Was also tested extensively on the Midland Main Line out of St. Pancras and on the Old Dalby Test Track, where in January 1976 it attained a speed of 143.6 mph (231.1 km/h). APT-E testing ended in 1976, and the single train was sent directly to the National Railway Museum in York on 11 June 1976. During its testing it covered approximately 23,500 miles (37,800 km), ending a career that
13589-580: Was begun in the 1860s by the Patent Office, whose museum included such early relics as Puffing Billy , Stephenson's Rocket and Agenoria (sister locomotive to Stourbridge Lion ), which was outhoused to York at an early date. Preservation of redundant equipment by the railway companies themselves was a matter of chance. Sometimes relics were stored in company workshops and offices and some were destroyed as circumstances changed. Some were put on public display, usually at railway stations, displayed in
13716-446: Was being derided as a failure. Plans for a production version, APT-S, were abandoned, and the three APT-Ps ran for just over a year before being withdrawn again over the winter of 1985/6. Two of the three sets were broken up, and parts of the third sent to the National Railway Museum where it joined the APT-E. Despite the challenges faced by the APT, its design was highly influential and directly inspired other high-speed trains, such as
13843-422: Was being seen at speeds as low as 20 miles per hour (32 km/h). Jones was convinced that hunting oscillation was an effect similar to the problem of aeroelastic flutter encountered in aerodynamics , and decided to hire someone from the aeronautics field to investigate it. In October 1962, Alan Wickens was given the position. Wickens was a dynamics expert who had previously worked at Armstrong Whitworth on
13970-416: Was carried out by a joint team from the two divisions, led by David Boocock. As a result of this review a number of additional changes were made to the design. A major problem was the recent discovery that the overhead lines on the WCML were subject to the creation of large waves in the lines at speeds over 200 kilometres per hour (120 mph). This was not a problem for two trains following each other with
14097-555: Was complete, in June 1976, it was sent to the National Railway Museum , York for preservation. It is now based at the NRM's Locomotion museum in Shildon . When further APT Class 370 units were built, they were powered by 25 kV AC electrification . The APT-POP (Power-0-Power) set was a rake of three skeletal unpowered carriages used as a test bed for the suspension, tilting and braking systems used by APT units. The 'Power pumps' were only mock-ups, though similar externally to PC1 and PC2 in
14224-518: Was driven by a redundant onboard computer system using Intel 4004 microprocessors. The track units were essentially the same as the modern French Balise beacons. The hydrokinetic brake system was successful and reliable on the APT-E and was retained for the APT-P with a number of design improvements from the lessons learnt on APT-E. However, as an energy-cutting measure, the hydraulically actuated friction brakes used for low speed were modified to be fed by
14351-460: Was highly unlikely given these passenger levels. This presented a problem for any sort of high-speed operation on the route because the existing line contained many turns and curves, and rounding these at high speed would cause lateral forces that would make walking difficult, and throw items off tables onto the floor. The traditional solution to this problem is to tilt the rails into the turns, an effect known as superelevation or cant . This has
14478-520: Was immediately 'blacked' by the drivers' union ASLEF , due to concerns that the single driver's seat pre-empted ongoing negotiations about the single-manning of trains. It was over twelve months before it ran again on the main line in August 1973. The prototype was eventually tried out on the Great Western Main Line , and achieved a new British railway speed record when on 10 August 1975 it hit 152.3 mph (245.1 km/h) whilst on test with
14605-430: Was later revealed this was the reason he was hired. Over the next several years, Wickens' team carried out what is considered to be the most detailed study of the dynamics of steel wheels on rails ever conducted. Starting with incomplete work by F.W. Carter from 1930, the team studied conventional two-axle bogies and quickly discovered that, as Jones had suspected, the problem was dynamic instability. Out of this work came
14732-456: Was launched by the city council at the beginning of 2016. The NRM+ project was cancelled in April 2011 due to lack of success in assembling the funding package. However, major changes to the displays in the Station Hall began later in 2011. In 2012, the NRM decided to repatriate temporarily the two LNER A4 class steam locomotives, numbers 60008 Dwight D Eisenhower and 60010 Dominion of Canada from their respective North American homes at
14859-479: Was marketed as The Great Railway Show . A further selection of exhibits formed the National Railway Museum on Tour on display for a season in the former Swindon Works . Meanwhile, the main building was completely re-roofed and reconstructed retaining only one of the two original 1954 turntables . It was reopened on 16 April 1992 by Prince Edward, Duke of Kent as the Great Hall giving enhanced opportunities to display large artifacts such as railway signals ,
14986-483: Was moving to single operator trains. A friendly inspector helped the team move the train back to Derby at night. This resulted in a one-day national strike that cost more than the entire APT-E project. By this point the POP had demonstrated a number of problems, and the engineers took the opportunity to start a major overhaul of the design. The main problem was the design of the non-driven bogies, which were not stable and could not be used for high speed runs. One power car
15113-442: Was no practical upper limit to the achievable speeds in terms of dynamics, and that any limitations on maximum performance would be due to other factors like traction or wear on the lines. Eventually a series of six HSFV designs would be tested until 1976, and the last, HSFV-6, entered service that year. During this period, BR's Passenger Business division produced a report suggesting rail could compete with road and air, but only if
15240-554: Was only when the NRM was formed that Britain acquired a rail-served railway museum where large exhibits could come and go with ease. The collection was dominated by items from the North Eastern Railway, together with Great Northern Railway items. The other three ' Big Four ' railway companies showed little interest in contributing to the LNER's initiative, though eventually one locomotive representative of each did find its way there:
15367-526: Was opened by Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh , in 1975. The opening coincided with the 150th anniversary celebrations of the opening of the Stockton & Darlington Railway, for which several working exhibits were provided. By comparison with the museum's predecessors coverage of ordinary passenger coaches and non-steam motive power was enhanced, but a popular new exhibit was ex-Southern Railway Merchant Navy Class No. 35029 Ellerman Lines sectioned to show
15494-442: Was organised under Mike Newman, while Alastair Gilchrist headed the research side. Newman noted that a single car was unlikely to answer practical questions like how the train would operate as a complete unit, and that a dummy body would not answer the question of whether the tilt mechanism could really be built under the floor without projecting into the cabin. Accordingly, later that same November, Newman and Wickens drew up plans for
15621-426: Was removed by August 2013. 2004 saw several major developments at the museum. Several railway anniversaries were celebrated by a major "Railfest". Another took place from 25 to 30 May 2008 with a Sixties theme. The Locomotion museum was opened at Shildon , County Durham providing undercover collection care facilities for more rail vehicles (particularly freight wagons) from the museum's collection. In addition,
15748-421: Was retained at the lab while the other and the two passenger cars were sent to the nearby Derby Works for modification. The main changes were to stiffen the power cars and replace the suspect bogies with a version of the powered bogie with the motors removed. Other changes included the removal of the ceramic recuperators from the turbines for reliability reasons, although this dramatically increased fuel use, and
15875-451: Was sent out on 14 April 1970, and ran for the first time in September 1971. The name "POP" was assigned, an acronym for "power-zero-power", indicating the two power car layout with no passenger cars in the middle. The selection of a space frame design for the power cars turned out to be fortunate, as during construction the engineers concluded that the packaging of the various elements within
16002-521: Was sufficiently complete by late 1971 for an official naming ceremony, where it became the APT-E (for Experimental). It made its first low-speed run from Derby to Duffield on 25 July 1972. Upon reaching Duffield, the ASLEF union immediately "blacked" it, forbidding their members from doing any work involving the train. Their complaint was that the APT-E had a single operator's chair, which they took as evidence that BR
16129-454: Was that the center of rotation could be through the middle of the car, instead of the top, meaning the total movement would fit within the smaller British loading gauge . Ispeert returned a report on the concept in August 1966. Wickens noted that BR's single-axle suspension system would have less drag at high speed, and that its lighter weight would make it more stable at high speeds than conventional dual-axle bogies. In November 1966 he wrote
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