InterCity 250 - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

InterCity 250 was the name of a proposed rolling stock

Rolling stock

Rolling stock comprises all the vehicles that move on a railway. It usually includes both powered and unpowered vehicles, for example locomotives, railroad cars, coaches and wagons...

, track

Rail tracks

The track on a railway or railroad, also known as the permanent way, is the structure consisting of the rails, fasteners, sleepers and ballast , plus the underlying subgrade...

and signalling

Railway signalling

Railway signalling is a system used to control railway traffic safely, essentially to prevent trains from colliding. Being guided by fixed rails, trains are uniquely susceptible to collision; furthermore, trains cannot stop quickly, and frequently operate at speeds that do not enable them to stop...

upgrade project on the West Coast Main Line

West Coast Main Line

The West Coast Main Line is the busiest mixed-traffic railway route in Britain, being the country's most important rail backbone in terms of population served. Fast, long-distance inter-city passenger services are provided between London, the West Midlands, the North West, North Wales and the...

by British Rail

British Rail

British Railways , which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was the operator of most of the rail transport in Great Britain between 1948 and 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the "Big Four" British railway companies and lasted until the gradual privatisation of British Rail, in stages...

in the early 1990s. The InterCity 250 train would have consisted of a Class 93

British Rail Class 93

British Rail Class 93 is the traction classification assigned to the electric locomotives that were to enter service as part of British Rail's InterCity 250 project on the West Coast Main Line ....

electric locomotive, nine Mark 5

British Rail Mark 5

The British Rail Mark 5 was the designation given to the planned passenger rolling stock for the InterCity 250 project.- Background :The Mark 5 project was intended to produce new rolling stock for the West Coast Main Line, which would be descended from the similar Mark 4 stock in service on the...

coaches and a Mark 5 Driving Van Trailer

Driving Van Trailer

A Driving Van Trailer is a purpose-built railway vehicle that allows the driver to operate a locomotive at the opposite end of a train. Trains operating with a DVT therefore do not require the locomotive to be moved around to the other end of the train at terminal stations...

. The project was cancelled in July 1992 before work could begin.

History

In 1985, work began to electrify the East Coast Main Line

East Coast Main Line

The East Coast Main Line is a long electrified high-speed railway link between London, Peterborough, Doncaster, Wakefield, Leeds, York, Darlington, Newcastle and Edinburgh...

. This project, which saw the line fitted with overhead wires

Railway electrification in Great Britain

Railway electrification in Great Britain started towards of the 19th century. A great range of voltages have been used in the intervening period using both overhead lines and third rails, however the most common standard for mainline services is now 25 kV AC using overhead lines and the...

between and Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

, took five years to complete. At the same time, a new generation of rolling stock was introduced, with the Class 91

British Rail Class 91

The British Rail Class 91 is a class of , electric locomotives ordered as a component of the East Coast Main Line modernisation and electrification programme of the late 1980s. The Class 91s were given the auxiliary name of InterCity 225 to indicate their envisaged top speed of...

electric locomotives combined with the Mark 4

British Rail Mark 4

British Rail's fourth design of passenger carriages was designated Mark 4, designed for use in InterCity 225 sets on the newly-electrified East Coast Main Line between London, Leeds, and Edinburgh.-History and construction:...

coaching stock to form what was termed the InterCity 225
InterCity 225
The InterCity 225 is a locomotive-hauled domestic train in the United Kingdom, comprising a Class 91 electric locomotive, nine Mark 4 coaches and a Driving Van Trailer...

train system (so called because the Class 91 locomotives had a top speed of 225 km/h).

Upon the completion of the ECML project, British Rail turned to the West Coast Main Line. This had been electrified in several stages over a fifteen-year period between 1959 and 1974. However, unlike the ECML the extensive curvature of the track along the route meant that it was ill suited to running high-speed trains

High-speed rail

High-speed rail is a type of passenger rail transport that operates significantly faster than the normal speed of rail traffic. Specific definitions by the European Union include for upgraded track and or faster for new track, whilst in the United States, the U.S...

(generally defined in Britain as trains capable of 125 mph or more), and so its services were limited to more modest speeds of 100–110 mph. In order to achieve the same standards as the ECML, major upgrade work of the track, signalling, OLE and a new generation of rolling stock were required.

In the late 1970s, British Rail had planned to address the WCML limitations with the Advanced Passenger Train

Advanced Passenger Train

The Advanced Passenger Train was an experimental tilting High Speed Train developed by British Rail during the 1970s and early 1980s....

project this circumvented any requirement to make significant infrastructure changes by using tilting train

Tilting train

A tilting train is a train that has a mechanism enabling increased speed on regular rail tracks. As a train rounds a curve at speed, objects inside the train experience centrifugal force. This can cause packages to slide about or seated passengers to feel squashed by the outboard armrest due to...

technology. The project reached the prototype stage, with the introduction of three Class 370

British Rail Class 370

British Rail's Class 370 tilting trains, also referred to as APT-P , were the pre-production Advanced Passenger Train units...

electric multiple units into passenger service in 1981. However, initial failures of the tilt technology led to them being withdrawn. They were then used from 1984 to 1986 as test trains for researching the technologies and specifications required for what would become the Class 91

British Rail Class 91

.

In November 1990, British Rail announced the InterCity 250 project, which would address the problems on the WCML through improved track quality, route re-alignments, relaxation of maximum cant on curves to eight degrees (from six), new signalling, improved traction power supplies and between 24 to 40 new trains capable of up to 155 mph (250 km/h) rather than using tilting trains. This would have seen trains starting out at 125 mph around 1994, with incremental increases up to the maximum speed by the end of the 1990s. The East Coast Main Line high speed test site between Stoke Tunnel and New England North, used in the trial runs of the InterCity 225, was likely to have been used in the development and testing of the InterCity 250.

However, rolling stock orders placed by other sectors of British Rail led to a shortage of funding which saw many projects suspended or scrapped. The Class 93 locomotives were to be styled by Seymour Powell and invitations to build the rolling stock were placed on 11 March 1991 with three manufacturers which included GEC-Alsthom Transportation and a joint bid from Siemens (locomotives) and Bombardier Prorail (coaching stock) tendering to provide vehicles with an in-service date of 1995. Because of the impact of the 1990s recession a lack of funding from the Treasury led to the InterCity 250 project being abandoned in 1992. In 1993 it was suggested that the InterCity 250 could provide a suitable specification for future replacement rolling stock on both the Great Western and East Coast Main Lines.

Cancellation

InterCity 250 came at a time when improvements to the West Coast Mainline were desperately needed. However, the infrastructure on the West Coast Main Line was incapable of supporting the operation of 155 mph trains. Consequently the project entailed both the delivery of new rolling stock and the infrastructure changes needed to support them. This included, for example, adopting new track alignments such as using the trackbed of the former Great Central Railway between London and Rugby and resignalling of the West Coast Main Line as far north as Crewe, together with extensive modifications to the existing OLE - supplied by new 25kV auto-transformers. The project was valued at around 750 million pounds but the impact of the 1990s recession and the impending privatisation of British Rail led to it being cancelled in July 1992.

A later proposal in 1993 by BR to manufacture a follow-on set of ten InterCity 225

InterCity 225

The InterCity 225 is a locomotive-hauled domestic train in the United Kingdom, comprising a Class 91 electric locomotive, nine Mark 4 coaches and a Driving Van Trailer...

units for priority express operations on the WCML was rejected by the Treasury on the grounds that it was of poor value and exposed the suppliers to excessive financial risk. The bid by BR was also hampered by a lack of available manufacturers, as Metro-Cammell and BREL were by that time heavily committed to production of the Class 365/465/466 Networker units.

Legacy

Although InterCity 250 was cancelled, the improvements to the WCML were still required and were campaigned for by the West Coast Rail 250 pressure group. Following the privatisation of British Rail

Privatisation of British Rail

The privatisation of British Rail was set in motion when the Conservative government enacted, on 19 January 1993, the British Coal and British Rail Act 1993 . This enabled the relevant Secretary of State to issue directions to the relevant Board...

in 1994, the newly formed rail infrastructure company Railtrack

Railtrack

Railtrack was a group of companies that owned the track, signalling, tunnels, bridges, level crossings and all but a handful of the stations of the British railway system from its formation in April 1994 until 2002...

drew up plans for track and signalling upgrades to allow for high-speed running, which it budgeted at £2 billion. The predicted journey times for a 250 km/h option 'e' tilting train were based upon the calculated InterCity 250 performance over the West Coast Main Line supplied by British Rail. The first phase of the upgrade, between London Euston and Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

was completed in 2004; however, work at several sites including Rugby and Milton Keynes stations, the Trent Valley and the remainder of the route to Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

continued until December 2008. The major inter-city passenger operator on the WCML, Virgin Trains

Virgin Trains

Virgin Trains is a train operating company in the United Kingdom. It operates long-distance passenger services on the West Coast Main Line between London, the West Midlands, North West England, North Wales and Scotland...

, placed a rolling stock order worth £1 billion for 53 nine car sets of the new Class 390 Pendolino

British Rail Class 390

The Class 390 Pendolino is a type of train used in Great Britain. They are electric multiple units using Fiat's tilting train pendolino technology and built by Alstom. Fifty-three 9-car units were originally built for Virgin Trains from 2001 to 2004 for operation on the West Coast Main Line , with...

electric multiple unit. These are seen as the successor to the original APT concept, in that they utilise tilting technology to successfully negotiate the route of the WCML at high speed. Though infrastructure limitations presently limit them to 125 mph, the trains are capable of speeds up to 140 mph.

External links

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History

Cancellation

Legacy

See also

External links