[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Chris

This is a better example than you realise.

BR was under intense political pressure to deliver on the APT project, despite not being given adequate resources to complete the R&D. The pressure to complete quickly and the refusal to invest were both political decisions by a government that wasn’t willing to invest in rail. As a result, the few APTs that ever entered service had a tendency to either tilt too far, causing motion sickness, or not tilt at all, causing things to fly across the cabin.

The APT project was dropped and its patents sold to Fiat, which refined the system (IIRC the tilting mechanism is now electrical rather than hydraulic). It is now installed on a range of vehicles, including, in the UK, Pendolinos and Super Voyagers used by Virgin Trains West Coast (I believe CrossCountry have had the mechanism removed from their Super Voyagers when they took over the franchise - there is still a relatively high maintenance cost that can only be justified on certain routes).

A government committed long-term to a rail transport strategy could have seen it through, but UK governments have rarely been favourable towards rail and in the 1970s and 80s they very much allowed it to operate on sufferance.

Good summary. And now Stadler has introduced non-tilting trains in the UK that go as fast as the tiliting Pendolinos and Voyagers without tilting or its costs. But that's a little off track.