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Post by Dirty Epic on Jun 26, 2020 8:34:00 GMT
Who can forget the infamous ATP project which just needed tweaking but the plug was pulled and it was scrapped Fwd 20 years and we buy the technology we invented in this project from from abroad (Pendolinos) Good old B.R Strangely enough the Pendolino's are rubbish compared to the ATP, too small/too cramped, claustraphobic and dealing with (pre-Covid) much increased passenger numbers too.
Again the Pendolino's were meant to do 140 mph and have been restricted to 125 so they're not that much better than the previous generation trains like the 125/225 etc.
I doubt HS2 will cure the issues of cramped, overcrowding on WCML etc. in fact it'll be fudged and I can see a lot of it being built/ran on current infrastructure!
Had BR/the government properly invested in the West Coast line from the mid 70's to the ATP's introduction in the early 80's they'd have worked very well on the line and been as good as the French TGV's which came on stream after ATP was cancelled.
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Three Litre
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Post by Three Litre on Jun 26, 2020 19:39:07 GMT
I'd also thought of the Hughes H-4 earlier but Gerry pipped me to it. The other white elephant I can think of was the Russian Ekranoplan. It looked like a sea plane but with much shorter wings which 'flew' above the water thanks to the ground effect rather than the lift characteristics of the wing profile. I think that only one was ever made but it was a huge vehicle with eight engines that could only 'fly' up to 300mph at only about four metres above the surface of the water. A handful of smaller Ekranoplans were made but were soon phased out: Sam. They worked but were a rather uncomfortable ride, probably had a military use.
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Three Litre
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Post by Three Litre on Jun 26, 2020 19:44:02 GMT
There are no end of UK planes that were abandoned. A supersonic Harrier the P1154, the Bristol Brabazon a huge prop driven airliner cleverly built as jet engines were becoming the future.
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Three Litre
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Post by Three Litre on Jun 26, 2020 19:49:52 GMT
The Trump presidency.
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Cartman
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Post by Cartman on Jun 26, 2020 22:03:48 GMT
Good shouts on the Sinclair C5 and APT. I saw a C5 once only
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Post by Gene Hunt on Jun 26, 2020 22:39:55 GMT
Good shouts on the Sinclair C5 and APT. I saw a C5 once only Hideous. Worse than Clive's effort. Gene.
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Post by Sam Tyler on Jun 26, 2020 22:55:50 GMT
Good shouts on the Sinclair C5 and APT. I saw a C5 once only I've never seen a C5 on the road but there are a group of C5 owners that have gone to events at Brooklands. They travel around the museum site okay but are crap on the test hill! The only other C5 I saw was hanging upside down in a stair well with the headlight connected into the house wiring to provide the stair lighting. Sam.
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Del Boy
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Post by Del Boy on Jun 26, 2020 23:14:13 GMT
An eccentric kid in my area had one in the late 80s. It was a strange thing. Had pedals to aid the drive as the battery was crap
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Three Litre
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Post by Three Litre on Jun 27, 2020 8:26:48 GMT
There was a hover train project in the 70's in the Ely area, the RTV 31. It worked, it wasn't an air driven hovercraft like the sort that used to go across the channel, it had a linear induction motor and used magnetic fields for levitation and propulsion. Funding was cut so it was cancelled. I've been on a similar one in China on a business trip, it goes about 300 mph. Of course anyone with a pacemaker dies and if you have metal in your body you end up pinned to the floor, otherwise just like a normal train!
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Three Litre
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Post by Three Litre on Jun 27, 2020 8:31:24 GMT
This has got to be one of the worlds biggest failures : "What part of no smoking in flight didn't you understand?"
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