APT What we nearly had!
Discussion
From the Heritage Centre Website
"New for 2018!
The Crewe Heritage Centre has long been home to our stunning Advanced Passenger Train Prototype (APT-P), we are very pleased to announce the arrival of the only other surviving APT-P vehicle. Power Car (49006) has joined us after completing the journey from Coventry Electric Traction Museum, the Power Car will be a stand alone exhibit allowing visitors to walk through the heart of the train."
"New for 2018!
The Crewe Heritage Centre has long been home to our stunning Advanced Passenger Train Prototype (APT-P), we are very pleased to announce the arrival of the only other surviving APT-P vehicle. Power Car (49006) has joined us after completing the journey from Coventry Electric Traction Museum, the Power Car will be a stand alone exhibit allowing visitors to walk through the heart of the train."
Flying Phil said:
From the Heritage Centre Website
"New for 2018!
The Crewe Heritage Centre has long been home to our stunning Advanced Passenger Train Prototype (APT-P), we are very pleased to announce the arrival of the only other surviving APT-P vehicle. Power Car (49006) has joined us after completing the journey from Coventry Electric Traction Museum, the Power Car will be a stand alone exhibit allowing visitors to walk through the heart of the train."
I went past it the other day on the train to Liverpool, but totally forgot so I didn't have my camera ready. I was still reeling at the presence of two steam locos in the station."New for 2018!
The Crewe Heritage Centre has long been home to our stunning Advanced Passenger Train Prototype (APT-P), we are very pleased to announce the arrival of the only other surviving APT-P vehicle. Power Car (49006) has joined us after completing the journey from Coventry Electric Traction Museum, the Power Car will be a stand alone exhibit allowing visitors to walk through the heart of the train."
APT, coming to an East West Railway near you (if you live between Oxford and Cambridge)!!
East West Rail link second phase plans submitted http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-he...
Now, I'm not naive enough to believe it's anything more than a promotional render, but it just seems odd to me that someone at Network Rail decided that the APT still represents the future. Maybe he/she has rose tinted specs!
East West Rail link second phase plans submitted http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-he...
Now, I'm not naive enough to believe it's anything more than a promotional render, but it just seems odd to me that someone at Network Rail decided that the APT still represents the future. Maybe he/she has rose tinted specs!
I too wish that I had made the effort to see the APT and was not too young at the time.....However we expected it to go into service, the cancellation was a surprise and the speed and secrecy at which it was scrapped (all bar the one set) was also unexpected. BR was, by that time, totally embarrassed by the project and the bad publicity it had created.
Boatbuoy said:
APT, coming to an East West Railway near you (if you live between Oxford and Cambridge)!!
East West Rail link second phase plans submitted http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-he...
Now, I'm not naive enough to believe it's anything more than a promotional render, but it just seems odd to me that someone at Network Rail decided that the APT still represents the future. Maybe he/she has rose tinted specs!
The article states plans for the third phase are "in development". Yes, they'll need developing as the idiot council laid a guided busway over rhe old trackbed into Cambridge. A guided busway that needs £30m of repairs 6 years after opening.East West Rail link second phase plans submitted http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-he...
Now, I'm not naive enough to believe it's anything more than a promotional render, but it just seems odd to me that someone at Network Rail decided that the APT still represents the future. Maybe he/she has rose tinted specs!
Pinkie15 said:
Just noticed/realised the APT livery seems to have been ‘recycled’ for the Network South East livery.
Anyone know why ?
I don't think it was directly or literally 'recycled', although there is a coincidence that the APT was finally retired at the exact same time as LSE was rebranded as NSE and gained its new livery. Anyone know why ?
But the NSE livery was (like most the second-wave sectorisation liveries) designed by an external commercial agency, in this case Jordan Williams. They might have been (ahem) inspired by the APT, but the NSE revamp had a lot of original work in it (such as the tricolour flash that you can still find in many places on the network, the mural artwork added to carriage interiors and the branding of individual routes with their own name and stylised logos). There are only so many designs that 'work' on trains and these things, like everything else, go in fashion cycles. The NSE 'toothpaste' livery uses different colours and slightly different shapes than the APT scheme - all they have in common are being three colours in bands with diagonals at the end.
There could also be the lingering dead hand of the British Rail Corporate Identity Manual at work - by 1986 this was supposed to be have been loosened up but you could see it's influence in the 'first generation' sectorisation liveries since they still had to comply. Hence why LS&E, Provincial, InterCity and ScotRail all used three-colour horizontal banded livery. It could be that it was felt easier to get top-level approval for the NSE livery if a similar scheme was already in use.
2xChevrons said:
I don't think it was directly or literally 'recycled', although there is a coincidence that the APT was finally retired at the exact same time as LSE was rebranded as NSE and gained its new livery.
But the NSE livery was (like most the second-wave sectorisation liveries) designed by an external commercial agency, in this case Jordan Williams. They might have been (ahem) inspired by the APT, but the NSE revamp had a lot of original work in it (such as the tricolour flash that you can still find in many places on the network, the mural artwork added to carriage interiors and the branding of individual routes with their own name and stylised logos). There are only so many designs that 'work' on trains and these things, like everything else, go in fashion cycles. The NSE 'toothpaste' livery uses different colours and slightly different shapes than the APT scheme - all they have in common are being three colours in bands with diagonals at the end.
There could also be the lingering dead hand of the British Rail Corporate Identity Manual at work - by 1986 this was supposed to be have been loosened up but you could see it's influence in the 'first generation' sectorisation liveries since they still had to comply. Hence why LS&E, Provincial, InterCity and ScotRail all used three-colour horizontal banded livery. It could be that it was felt easier to get top-level approval for the NSE livery if a similar scheme was already in use.
There is an identity designer's principle – that I happen to subscribe to – which goes along the lines of 'the quality and consistency of a corporate identity may be read as circumstantial evidence of the quality and consistency of the organisation to which it is applied'. I think it's a bit unfair to refer to the dead hand of the BR identity manual. It was and remains a brilliant identity, the tragedy is that it came to brilliantly identify an underfunded national joke of a railway system.But the NSE livery was (like most the second-wave sectorisation liveries) designed by an external commercial agency, in this case Jordan Williams. They might have been (ahem) inspired by the APT, but the NSE revamp had a lot of original work in it (such as the tricolour flash that you can still find in many places on the network, the mural artwork added to carriage interiors and the branding of individual routes with their own name and stylised logos). There are only so many designs that 'work' on trains and these things, like everything else, go in fashion cycles. The NSE 'toothpaste' livery uses different colours and slightly different shapes than the APT scheme - all they have in common are being three colours in bands with diagonals at the end.
There could also be the lingering dead hand of the British Rail Corporate Identity Manual at work - by 1986 this was supposed to be have been loosened up but you could see it's influence in the 'first generation' sectorisation liveries since they still had to comply. Hence why LS&E, Provincial, InterCity and ScotRail all used three-colour horizontal banded livery. It could be that it was felt easier to get top-level approval for the NSE livery if a similar scheme was already in use.
Yertis said:
There is an identity designer's principle – that I happen to subscribe to – which goes along the lines of 'the quality and consistency of a corporate identity may be read as circumstantial evidence of the quality and consistency of the organisation to which it is applied'. I think it's a bit unfair to refer to the dead hand of the BR identity manual. It was and remains a brilliant identity, the tragedy is that it came to brilliantly identify an underfunded national joke of a railway system.
Oh, I absolutely agree. I have one of the modern reprints of the BRCIM and it's a magnificent document and includes some excellent graphic and industrial design work. The 'BR Blue' corporate identity and the scope, thoroughness and consistency of its implementation was one of the (all-too-readily forgotten) things that BR did to a world-class level. Other railways (and even non-rail organisations) came to study BR's corporate branding and to use it as a model. I did not intended 'dead hand' as a pejorative, although just 'lingering influence' may have been a fairer way of putting it.
Good to see that APT at Crewe looking in a bit do a better state than the last time I saw it, circa 2006
I remember having a Hornby catalogue from the early 80s that featured their APT, but think it’s long gone now unfortunately
Think this was it:
I remember having a Hornby catalogue from the early 80s that featured their APT, but think it’s long gone now unfortunately
Think this was it:
Edited by Leins on Wednesday 10th November 23:17
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