Virgin trains, operator of intercity and cross-country trains in the UK currently operates a fleet of Inter-City 125 high speed trains. Soon they will have even more high speed trains:
High speed rail is coming to the west coast (See: the upgrade to the west coast). GEC Alsthom and Fiat Ferroviaria have been awarded the contract to build and maintain fleet of 55 trains. Each train will be 8 cars long. These will run along the west coast mainline, the 400mile (640km) stretch right across the United Kingdom from London to Glasgow.
The tilting system is where Fiat Ferroviaria will come in. They built the Italian pendolini trains, and the same tilting mechanism used on pendolini's is likely to be used on the new virgin trains.
These tilt trains will replace the old intercity trains pulled by class 87 and class 86 locomotives, capable of 110mph and 100mph respectively. This will be a releif because these engines have never been overhauled and are over 25 years old. Since they were only designed for short term (10 years) locomotives while the Advanced passenger train was being developed, they are now plagued with technical faults, and Virgin is currently the worst offender when it comes to late trains. It is quite normal for trains to run half an hour late.
Bombardier is a Canadian company. Virgin has awarded them the contract to build cross country high speed trains. These trains will not replace but supplement the existing services. Indeed this is seriously needed, although most cities have about 16 trains a day going into London the situation is very different for cross country services. People travelling from Devon and Cornwall to the north often find there are only about 3 direct trains a day. Also because some of these will be tilting trains they will be able to run faster on the curved routes helping to cut journey times. These will be diesels because only the most important mainlines (such as the West and East coast) have been electrified.
The Canadian based company Bombardier said this was the most important deal they have ever made, and Virgin is paying them £853million (CA $2billion) to build and maintain the new trains. Bombardier will be building the trains here in the UK at the Wakefield plant.
Virgin Cross Country has orderd 43 4-car DMUs. These will be tilting DMUs which means they may well be able to offer faster services than conventional high speed trains along non-electrified routes. On the right is a computer generated image of what these DMUs should look like. Note the "Virgin" logo on the side.
For longer distance trains Virgin has ordered 140 coaches and 36 diesel locomotives capable of 125 mph. The Coaches will be designated as Mark 5 (after Mark 4 on the IC225 and Mark 3 on the IC125). These will not tilt but will be designed so that if nessacary a tilting mechanism can be added later. (A bit like Mark 4s). General Motors will be making the locomotives along with Bombardier. This is an unusual venture for general motors becayse they normaly build medium speed frieght diesels such as the British class 59 which has a top speed of 62mph or 100km/h. This will be their first 125mph (200km/h) diesel that they will build.
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