Wait
How will tilt benefit the ECML?
Its straight as a die until Durham and even then there are other reasons why the line there is not 125mph?
Most of which we are not talking about because it's covered by HS2.
For the cost of tilt clearing the northern ECML I can put together a few dozen more kilometres of HSR and destroy your time advantage.
Great - build your extra HSR and we'll have both. I remember the Virgin ECML proposal too.
People are talking about HS2 Phase 3 going to Scotland. I can't see that missing out the north east, but I also have a strong suspicion we'll have an upgrade north of Newcastle rather than a full-blown new build.
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I didn't say it would weigh double, I said a non-articulated AGV with 17m carriages would have almost twice as many bogies which would add a significant weight to the train as a whole.
So let's be conservative. If an AGV coach is under 34 tonnes, then let's add 10 tonnes for tilt and 6 for a bogie and we are at 50 tonnes. Divided by 4 axles is 12.5 tonnes.
Nevertheless, we are talking about tilting classic compatibles and non-tilting captives and though that's an extreme example it does indicate the significant weight tilt can add.
Of course, but Pendolino carriages still weigh in at around 50 tons a vehicle, of which tilt is responsible for around 4-5 tons if I remember previous discussions correctly.
Sure, so the above must be very conservative.
The upfront and ongoing cost of tilt has to be justified by the journey time benefits - the only HS2 service where tilt would produce a meaningful decrease in journey time is over the northern fells, which will be limited by capacity constraints and are a fraction of the services operated by classic compatible trainsets. Increasing conventional speed limits would be far more productive.
Your missing my point entirely - it doesn't matter whether such a design is technically possible, only Anglo-Scottish services would see any appreciable difference in journey time.
Yep, Anglo-Scottish services are what I am targeting here - but that might also be a Newcastle to Edinburgh service and not just a London - Glasgow.
However, the post HS2 Ph2 London - Edinburgh time of 3h38 is, frankly, embarrassing. They are going to need to do better than that to tackle the airlines' market share. There is a market of 700,000 pax a month to go for.
That very limited benefit can't possibly justify the inherent extra weight of tilt and the impact that has on performance, nor the extra costs of developing, leasing, operating and maintaining such a fleet.
Such a market isn't a limited benefit, but 3h38 certainly doesn't cut the mustard.
Hardly, it was the latest pie-in-the-sky proposal that ignores pathing constraints. Good publicity for Virgin, but increasing the speed differential between Virgin services and everything else is hardly a good use of scarce capacity.
Whether it is Virgin or an open access operator, it serves to highlight that if after travelling half the length of the country at 220 mph a Pendolino could keep up, then something is wrong.
We know that the northern end of the WCML and ECML are not capacity constrained, so I cannot see a new build being justified, but still the Scottish Government and others will (rightly) want to speed up journey times and I just foresee a line upgrade being the route chosen. I'm saying that the stock should be able to make use of that.
There is also the issue of CC trains serving destinations other than London at the southern end of the line - e.g. Manchester Southampton or Leeds Penzance over phase 2.
I really don't understand why tilt is such a popular issue - it's not been justified away from the WCML and increasing conventional speed limits produces far wider benefits.
Chris
In which case we need to tell operators all over Europe that they've been getting it wrong. Railways from Portugal to Poland, Sweden to Italy have all chosen tilt where traffic volumes don't justify a new build. I can see that being the case to maximise HS2 benefits for Scotland.
