Tilting trains: How will history look back on them?

[MarkyT]

A couple of things I don't understand.
Firstly, when has it been agreed that journey times don't matter? For me and I suspect many others, journey times can be a decider between using rail or car or plane.
Secondly, what is the logic behind saying that new trains are more powerful, can accelerate faster, so we don't need tilt? Surely tilting trains go round curves quicker giving journey time (and comfort) advantages over non tilting trains? Is there any reason that new tilting trains cant be as powerful as modern non tilting trains, retaining the advantages of tilt with greater acceleration potential?

No one has decided journey times don't matter. It's more a case of refining the balance of costs and benefits in light of experience. Depending on the route, much of the benefit of tilt can be obtained by faster accelerating trains exploiting the straighter sections. Discarding the heavy bogies of full tilt designs used so far in UK saves weight and helps acceleration performance. The engineering stresses of higher speed in curves is not in any way mitigated by the body tilting, which is primarily for passenger comfort and safety. Track forces, particularly on the outer rail, increase commensurately with the speed, leading to more rail and wheel wear and thus more frequent reprofiling and renewal. Tilting rolling stock is more complex. Tilt control is a safety-critical function with tight precision control and many sensors to keep in adjustment. That increases maintenance activity and potentially erodes reliability compared to non-tilt stock.

 

[FGWHST43009]

No one has decided journey times don't matter. It's more a case of refining the balance of costs and benefits in light of experience. Depending on the route, much of the benefit of tilt can be obtained by faster accelerating trains exploiting the straighter sections. Discarding the heavy bogies of full tilt designs used so far in UK saves weight and helps acceleration performance. The engineering stresses of higher speed in curves is not in any way mitigated by the body tilting, which is primarily for passenger comfort and safety. Track forces, particularly on the outer rail, increase commensurately with the speed, leading to more rail and wheel wear and thus more frequent reprofiling and renewal. Tilting rolling stock is more complex. Tilt control is a safety-critical function with tight precision control and many sensors to keep in adjustment. That increases maintenance activity and potentially erodes reliability compared to non-tilt stock.

With that in mind, is there a future for tilt in the UK? While Alstom still offers tilt as part of their Avelia Stream platform and has built a tilting train for Amtrak, it's hard to see whether they would build another tilting train to British loading gauge. When HS2 opens (sadly not in full so reduced benefits) the Pendolinos will only have a few years left, depending if they're withdrawn when 30 or 40 years old. It remains to be seen what happens over the next 5-10 years.

 

[Sorcerer]

A couple of things I don't understand.
Firstly, when has it been agreed that journey times don't matter? For me and I suspect many others, journey times can be a decider between using rail or car or plane.
Secondly, what is the logic behind saying that new trains are more powerful, can accelerate faster, so we don't need tilt? Surely tilting trains go round curves quicker giving journey time (and comfort) advantages over non tilting trains? Is there any reason that new tilting trains cant be as powerful as modern non tilting trains, retaining the advantages of tilt with greater acceleration potential?

It's not that journey times don't matter, it's just in many cases across the world where they do matter, tilt hasn't been the preferred option. The primary draw for rail travel over road travel is convenience; for example, the route from London to Manchester. By car it is almost a four-hour drive, so even if the train journey time went back to 2h30 or even 2h 45 instead of 2h8 that we see today, it'd still be more convenient.

A downgrade yes, but as long as it was reliable, affordable, comfortable and efficient it wouldn't be a huge deal breaker. Liverpool is much the same. Even a three-hour journey would be more comfortable and convenient than travelling by car. Of course part of the reason why it's as convenient as it is now is thanks to the introduction of tilting trains, but the introduction of the Evero is showing us that tilt isn't necessary to maintain the journey times we have now.

One of the Evero's advantages is that it's lighter and able to accelerate quicker in part because of not being weighed down by tilting equipment. Any new tilting train with similar acceleration would need more power because it would be heavier, naturally leading to more potential track wear over the long term. It's not just the UK either, Switzerland has also opted for high-capacity non-tilting trains for it's flagship InterCity services.

Tilting trains are a product which serve a particular purpose, on fast intercity services where it isn’t going to be practical to straighten out curvy railway lines. The WCML is the perfect example of this. It’s never ever going to be cost effective to straighten out the line north of Preston because the earthworks required would be insane, same with the ECML north of Darlington tbh.

The reason why XC disabled the tilt is because it wasn’t used once the WCML had been carved out of the franchise, and it wasn’t used because the infrastructure wasn’t upgraded other than a couple of EPS sections.

If tilting trains have been a “failure” it’s because the infrastructure wasn’t put into place.

There's not much I can disagree with here to be honest. The WCML was perfect for tilting trains because it was so curvy, but over the years it seems the industry has decided that tilt is no longer necessary. London to Scotland journeys naturally makes the best use of the tilt feature because of it's length and because at those distances, domestic air travel becomes the primary competitor over road travel and thus faster journey times are necessary.

But when that happens that is the point where operators usually opt for proper dedicated high-speed lines. It's not that tilting trains have been a failure, far from it, they have been successful and should be looked back on positively for what they enabled. But they aren't so successful that operators will be clamming for more of them after their first ones are life-expired. Not exactly a Gadgetbahn, just something useful that became largely redundant.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Nov 2025 ==

With that in mind, is there a future for tilt in the UK? While Alstom still offers tilt as part of their Avelia Stream platform and has built a tilting train for Amtrak, it's hard to see whether they would build another tilting train to British loading gauge. When HS2 opens (sadly not in full so reduced benefits) the Pendolinos will only have a few years left, depending if they're withdrawn when 30 or 40 years old. It remains to be seen what happens over the next 5-10 years.

I think the industry has collectively decided that tilt does not have a future in the UK. It's good enough that we won't actively try to get rid of it, but it's not something we will be renewing once it's time for a replacement. In the mean time the Pendolino will continue serving it's purpose until it's due for replacement, at which point tilting trains will likely become a thing of history. It has been worth it, it's just the specialised roles it fills won't be there anymore.

 

[MatthewHutton]

It's not that journey times don't matter, it's just in many cases across the world where they do matter, tilt hasn't been the preferred option. The primary draw for rail travel over road travel is convenience; for example, the route from London to Manchester. By car it is almost a four-hour drive, so even if the train journey time went back to 2h30 or even 2h 45 instead of 2h8 that we see today, it'd still be more convenient.

Firstly there are a lot of trips within the UK where the time between the train and driving is much closer. e.g driving from Cardiff to Manchester is 3h45 by car vs 3h20 by train or Oxford to Manchester which is 2h50 by train and 2h57 by car.

Secondly the trans-pennine route is a pretty key one where tilting trains for the expresses at least would add a lot of value.

 

[mike57]

Given the debacle that is HS2 I think tilting trains may be back on the agenda. HS2 is unlikely to progress north of Crewe in any foreseeable future and the Handsacre Glasgow distance is around 270 miles on classic lines, with only ~130 miles on high speed line so tilting is going to be needed if journey times are to be improved.

The 'better acceleration' can only get you so far. It's the excuse that was used on TPE with the 185s which can't use SP differentials, and for quite a few journeys it was clearly not the case. York Scarborough being a good example which was quicker in 158 days. (10 - 15 mph faster over a lot of the 40 odd miles, with only 1 stop in the middle, because Seamer is almost in Scarborough)

Where you have significant distances with a proper Inter City service, which is what you need for London Glasgow, mph count. Assuming the classic line limit stays at 125mph, which seems likely, then you need to get as close to 125mph as possible over the whole 270 mile leg north of Handsacre.

So I think the historical view will be positive, particularly given the HS2 outcome.

 

[The Pelican]

Ultimately the fate of tilt in the UK was largely decided by the HST (class 43) not having it, which led to the process of clearing the ECML, GWML, and parts of the MML and XC for 125 mph without tilt; this made it specialised, and made it harder for it to continue permenantly on the WCML. It's impressive that 125 mph running is more than a quarter of the age of having passenger railways at all.

 

[MarkyT]

It's impressive that 125 mph running is more than a quarter of the age of having passenger railways at all.

A testament to early engineers who surveyed alignments capable of speeds far in advance of trains' abilities of the time.

 

[The Pelican]

A testament to early engineers who surveyed alignments capable of speeds far in advance of trains' abilities of the time.

Brunel would no doubt have been rather disappointed that the London-Swindon section wasn't appropriate for 200mph!

 

[Sorcerer]

Firstly there are a lot of trips within the UK where the time between the train and driving is much closer. e.g driving from Cardiff to Manchester is 3h45 by car vs 3h20 by train or Oxford to Manchester which is 2h50 by train and 2h57 by car.

That's not because of the rolling stock used more so than it is because of how much our railway is centred on London, so the argument there would be about trying to decentralise the network or improving non-London connectivity that is it's own discussion entirely.

Secondly the trans-pennine route is a pretty key one where tilting trains for the expresses at least would add a lot of value.

Even assuming the TransPennine route was electrified it's debatable as to whether or not it would be worth the expenses to use tilting trains, which in this case also includes the implementation of TASS or a similar feature. Considering the industry is opting for non-tilt stock where this is available (West Coast Main Line) I doubt it will opt for it on a route which is not fitted with any form of tilt control.

Given the debacle that is HS2 I think tilting trains may be back on the agenda. HS2 is unlikely to progress north of Crewe in any foreseeable future and the Handsacre Glasgow distance is around 270 miles on classic lines, with only ~130 miles on high speed line so tilting is going to be needed if journey times are to be improved.

The 'better acceleration' can only get you so far. It's the excuse that was used on TPE with the 185s which can't use SP differentials, and for quite a few journeys it was clearly not the case. York Scarborough being a good example which was quicker in 158 days. (10 - 15 mph faster over a lot of the 40 odd miles, with only 1 stop in the middle, because Seamer is almost in Scarborough)

Where you have significant distances with a proper Inter City service, which is what you need for London Glasgow, mph count. Assuming the classic line limit stays at 125mph, which seems likely, then you need to get as close to 125mph as possible over the whole 270 mile leg north of Handsacre.

So I think the historical view will be positive, particularly given the HS2 outcome.

Network Rail have been looking into clearing the WCML north of Preston for 125mph running, and with the implementation of Multiple Unit speed boards that will be cleared for the 805/807 stock, it's likely that the 895s will be cleared for these speeds as well, especially with the serious cutbacks to HS2 that will demand no decrease in journey times when domestic air travel becomes the primary competitor over road travel.

This is why I'm of the opinion that history will look back on tilting trains as something that did it's job perfectly well but was made redundant with advancements and changes in railway technology and rolling stock. Switzerland's ICN is similar to the Pendolino in that sense. Worth keeping around to allow it to live out the rest of it's lifespan, but not something that will be worth the expense of repeating.

 

[MarkyT]

Brunel would no doubt have been rather disappointed that the London-Swindon section wasn't appropriate for 200mph!

Much of it might be, on broad route geometry alone, but there are nasty wiggles through some stations on the mains. I'd not advocate it!

 

[The Pelican]

Much of it might be, on broad route geometry alone, but there are nasty wiggles through some stations on the mains. I'd not advocate it!

I think it's main problem is crowdedness- it needs eight tracks out of Paddington- two Slow Heathrows, two Outer Suburbans, two Slow Bristols (roughly today's fast trains, stopping at Reading- Swindon- Chippenham etc) and two Non stop for WCML style expresses which don't stop until the outer suburbs of the city they terminate in (presumably on the GWML , non stop to Bath/ Newport/ Taunton)

 

[MatthewHutton]

Even assuming the TransPennine route was electrified it's debatable as to whether or not it would be worth the expenses to use tilting trains, which in this case also includes the implementation of TASS or a similar feature. Considering the industry is opting for non-tilt stock where this is available (West Coast Main Line) I doubt it will opt for it on a route which is not fitted with any form of tilt control.

It would cost massively less to electrify, do a Salford-Piccadilly tunnel and support tilting trains than the £15bn proposal from Burnham to speed up Liverpool-Manchester.

Especially as the benefits are higher too as you also add north south capacity.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 30 Nov 2025 ==

That's not because of the rolling stock used more so than it is because of how much our railway is centred on London, so the argument there would be about trying to decentralise the network or improving non-London connectivity that is it's own discussion entirely

It’s still almost certainly cheaper to do tilting on the curves on those routes than to straighten them.

 

[The Planner]

Network Rail have been looking into clearing the WCML north of Preston for 125mph running, and with the implementation of Multiple Unit speed boards that will be cleared for the 805/807 stock, it's likely that the 895s will be cleared for these speeds as well, especially with the serious cutbacks to HS2 that will demand no decrease in journey times when domestic air travel becomes the primary competitor over road travel.

Looking is doing some heavy lifting. There are no real plans at all. Remember that the scheme south of Weaver is Avanti led, not NR.

 

[Sorcerer]

It would cost massively less to electrify, do a Salford-Piccadilly tunnel and support tilting trains than the £15bn proposal from Burnham to speed up Liverpool-Manchester.

Which proposal are you talking about specifically, and how can you be sure it would be cheaper? Personally I doubt electrification, new tunneling and the introduction of TASS would cost less than £15 billion, I think the tunneling and electrification alone might well have the same price tag.

It’s still almost certainly cheaper to do tilting on the curves on those routes than to straighten them.

It's cheaper still to run non-tilting trains at roughly similar speeds thanks to not having the additional expenses and weight of the equipment required as well as reduced wear on the track over time. This is why operators around the world have opted not to continue buying tilting stock even when not straightening alignments.

Looking is doing some heavy lifting. There are no real plans at all. Remember that the scheme south of Weaver is Avanti led, not NR.

I was wondering why it hadn't progressed despite talk of it happening for so many years, but sooner or later they will probably have to make some new line speed clearances when the 895s are in service. Also even if the MU scheme is Avanti led, Network Rail will still definitely have a lot of say in the matter.

We're kind of getting off subject but I do think the introduction of faster line speeds for non-tilting stock is why history will view the technology as becoming redundant, because the industry as they are now are opting not to continue it, nor is anyone prepared to keep supporting TASS to enable tilt operation.

 

[Mgameing123]

The inferior seating capacity they cause(d) is certainly not something to look back on with delight. Voyagers today on XC are cramped and not overly pleasant inside, while IET equivalents are being introduced with something like 20-33% more seats (depending on configuration) for the same number of carriages as a Class 221, the Voyager built with tilt capability. A 10-car 805 is carrying approx. 100 more seats than a 10-car 221 did. Then the Class 807 has similar seat total to a 9-car Pendolino, despite being two carriages shorter.

But IET gets more capacity at the cost of passenger comfort.

 

[mike57]

Network Rail have been looking into clearing the WCML north of Preston for 125mph running

Yes but that is only going to be the fairly straight sections, and there are a lot of sections where curvature is the limit rather than the 125mph max on classic lines. Also 'looking at' is very different from delivering. I could see tilting being back in favour as a 'fix' for the failure of HS2.

A very heretical thought: Given current infrastructure what would be the journey time difference between a Pendolino doing 140mph (which they were designed for) on HS2 and running at tilt speeds for the remaining 270 miles to Glasgow and a hypothetical non tilting unit which can run at 200mph where permitted on HS2 (Because I think the first section out of London is 140mph anyway) but then having to stick to the non tilt limits the rest of the way. (No upgrades, just what is there now.)

 

[MatthewHutton]

Which proposal are you talking about specifically, and how can you be sure it would be cheaper? Personally I doubt electrification, new tunneling and the introduction of TASS would cost less than £15 billion, I think the tunneling and electrification alone might well have the same price tag.

The project I am referring to is:

Home

Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) - working together to improve the lives of people in Greater Manchester

www.greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk

Electrification at £10m a km which is still extremely high would be what £500m for a 50km stretch, and 5km of tunnel at £1bn/km which is absolutely ridiculous would still only be £5bn.

It's cheaper still to run non-tilting trains at roughly similar speeds thanks to not having the additional expenses and weight of the equipment required as well as reduced wear on the track over time. This is why operators around the world have opted not to continue buying tilting stock even when not straightening alignments.

If you can actually do that. Do not forget the pendelinos are pretty old now.

 

[mmh]

But IET gets more capacity at the cost of passenger comfort.

Class 805 and 807 are exactly the same comfort as a 390, they have exactly the same seats.

 

[FGWHST43009]

This is a bit more 'what if' but wasn't IC250 planned to run on the WCML at 125mph with no tilt? Does anyone have any info on what the plans were? Surely tilt makes the most difference north of Carnforth where the curves are sharper? Going off topic but surely the long-term solution is a base tunnel bypassing Shap?

I think it's main problem is crowdedness- it needs eight tracks out of Paddington- two Slow Heathrows, two Outer Suburbans, two Slow Bristols (roughly today's fast trains, stopping at Reading- Swindon- Chippenham etc) and two Non stop for WCML style expresses which don't stop until the outer suburbs of the city they terminate in (presumably on the GWML , non stop to Bath/ Newport/ Taunton)

New high-speed line? There are a few threads looking at this in more detail

 

[Bletchleyite]

This is a bit more 'what if' but wasn't IC250 planned to run on the WCML at 125mph with no tilt? Does anyone have any info on what the plans were?

I believe the intention was to do some bypassing and flattening out of the steepest curves, but short of building a form of HS2 it wouldn't be easy to do anything about say Berkhamsted (one of the steepest).

Surely tilt makes the most difference north of Carnforth where the curves are sharper? Going off topic but surely the long-term solution is a base tunnel bypassing Shap?

Given the much lower demand north of the North West cluster of cities (demand on the WCML is nothing like the ECML) that's a long way off if ever!

 

[mike57]

Going off topic but surely the long-term solution is a base tunnel bypassing Shap?

Even before HS2 turned into a truncated shadow of the original plans I would say this was in the unlikely pile. Given the current state of things I doubt if even the youngest members here would see it in their lifetimes.

It does raise questions surrounding long term plans for the Glasgow service, even if the funding were available would you spend the money that Shap improvements would take to sort out ECML bottlenecks/slow bits and run Glasgow via ECML and Edinburgh, after all geography is on the side of the ECML. Which would leave probably an hourly semi fast Glasgow service via the WCML.

 

[Sorcerer]

Yes but that is only going to be the fairly straight sections, and there are a lot of sections where curvature is the limit rather than the 125mph max on classic lines. Also 'looking at' is very different from delivering. I could see tilting being back in favour as a 'fix' for the failure of HS2.

It wouldn't really be much of a fix because there are no models of high-speed trains currently specified to run at HS2 speeds with similar tilt capability required for 125mph operation on the WCML, so even if the order wasn't already placed and specified I couldn't see it happening anyway. I think it's more likely we'll just try to squeeze what we can out of the existing infrastructure because that just seems to be the way we do things here.

A very heretical thought: Given current infrastructure what would be the journey time difference between a Pendolino doing 140mph (which they were designed for) on HS2 and running at tilt speeds for the remaining 270 miles to Glasgow and a hypothetical non tilting unit which can run at 200mph where permitted on HS2 (Because I think the first section out of London is 140mph anyway) but then having to stick to the non tilt limits the rest of the way. (No upgrades, just what is there now.)

It's hard to say, but if you could retrofit a Pendolino to run on HS2 then it would be about 15-20 minutes slower over the high-speed route but could possibly gain some of that time back on existing infrastructure. If I remember correctly the journey times of 140mph WCML running would've reduced journey times in the same way HS2 in full would've done (sub-1h Birmingham, 1h40 Manchester/Liverpool, 3h50 Glasgow) but without the added capacity.

Reintroduction of tilt attempting to make up for the cutbacks to HS2 would just prove my point about it being a country trying to squeeze what it can out of existing infrastructure due to an unwillingness to invest in new high-speed lines which might permit faster speeds in the short-term but won't actually bring a great deal of benefits in the long-term.

The project I am referring to is:

Home

Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) - working together to improve the lives of people in Greater Manchester

www.greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk

Electrification at £10m a km which is still extremely high would be what £500m for a 50km stretch, and 5km of tunnel at £1bn/km which is absolutely ridiculous would still only be £5bn.

By the looks of it this proposal is just another way of phrasing the Northern Powerhouse/HS3 idea, and lines like this are more about route capacity uplift than they are about increasing speeds. As it stands now the time to travel from Liverpool to Newcastle is comparable to car with the train being around 30 minutes faster; full electrification alone might be able to bring that down further. By that point, tilt is no longer necessary for faster more convenient journeys.

If the line was electrified already and the need for TASS wasn't there, then I could absolutely get behind the idea of cascading Pendolinos there after HS2 is complete, but as it is now the TransPennine route wouldn't need tilt to become faster and more convenient than road travel. Liverpool/Manchester to Scotland seems to be the most natural choice if the Pendolinos still have some life left in them by then, which they may well do, those things are built to last!

 

[MatthewHutton]

Reintroduction of tilt attempting to make up for the cutbacks to HS2 would just prove my point about it being a country trying to squeeze what it can out of existing infrastructure due to an unwillingness to invest in new high-speed lines which might permit faster speeds in the short-term but won't actually bring a great deal of benefits in the long-term.

Even at French costs for infrastructure it will be very very difficult to justify new high speed lines that are trans-Pennine or north of Crewe. That means tilt is a good tool to have in the toolbox.

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nd lines like this are more about route capacity uplift than they are about increasing speeds

To be fair you can improve both with better acceleration.

 

[Sorcerer]

Even at French costs for infrastructure it will be very very difficult to justify new high speed lines that are trans-Pennine or north of Crewe. That means tilt is a good tool to have in the toolbox.

It might be harder to justify new high-speed lines in these areas, but that doesn't mean tilt is necessary either. It wouldn't be a hindrance if the infrastructure was in place like the WCML, but for TransPennine you can already reduce the journey time without it with simple electrification and signal upgrades that offer more benefits beyond slightly faster journey times, so here it would be an unnecessary expense.

To be fair you can improve both with better acceleration.

To an extent yes, but at a certain stage you do run into the need for new lines. For Northern Powerhouse and HS2 it was about taking the fast trains off the classic mainline so regional trains could be increased. But that's getting off subject to be fair.

 

[FGWHST43009]

Even before HS2 turned into a truncated shadow of the original plans I would say this was in the unlikely pile. Given the current state of things I doubt if even the youngest members here would see it in their lifetimes.

It does raise questions surrounding long term plans for the Glasgow service, even if the funding were available would you spend the money that Shap improvements would take to sort out ECML bottlenecks/slow bits and run Glasgow via ECML and Edinburgh, after all geography is on the side of the ECML. Which would leave probably an hourly semi fast Glasgow service via the WCML.

I agree, doesn't seem logical to make the WCML the main corridor for both Anglo-Scottish freight and HS2 trains with ECML HS2 services terminating at Newcastle. Of course bypasses, upgrades etc between Darlington and Glasgow would be needed for the slower sections and bottlenecks. Ideally a full new line, would probably cheaper to build than up the West Coast without long tunnels needed. Not saying it would be cheap or likely to happen, but just a thought. Even without HS2 south of York there would still be journey time and capacity benefits but no capacity released further south.

 

[mmh]

I think the industry has collectively decided

You've said "the industry" numerous times. It's not an industry that is deciding any of this, it's government.

 

[Sorcerer]

You've said "the industry" numerous times. It's not an industry that is deciding any of this, it's government.

Can you say whether or not that makes much of a difference? Even if we left it entirely up to the industry experts with no government involvement I doubt the result would be much different.