Advanced Passenger Train

what is it?

The Advanced Passenger Train (APT) was a tilting high speed train developed by British Rail during the 1970s and early 1980s, for use on the West Coast Main Line (WCML). The WCML contains many curves, and the APT pioneered the concept of active tilting to address these, a feature that has since been copied on designs around the world. The experimental APT-E achieved a new British railway speed record on 10 August 1975 when it reached 152.3 miles per hour (245.1 km/h), only to be surpassed by the service prototype APT-P at 162.2 miles per hour (261.0 km/h) in December 1979.

who runs it

InterCityBritish Rail

base stats

• speed 249 km/htop speed
• built 3made in total

Bars compare against all trains: 600 km/h (maglev), 1,700 seats; power, weight and number built on a log scale up to 20 MW, 1,000 t and 20,000 built.

fun facts

• 🎂First built 54 years ago, in 1972.
• 🏎️Top speed is 1.9× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
• ⏱️At full speed it would cover Amsterdam–Utrecht (≈ 40 km) in 10 minutes.
• ⌛Served for 14 years (1972–1986).

high-speed train: Built for 200–350 km/h on dedicated lines, like the TGV, ICE or Shinkansen.

spec sheet

built

1972

in service from

1972

retired

1986

status

retired

number built

3

kind

high-speed train

origin

🇬🇧 United Kingdom

builders

British Rail Engineering Limited, British Rail Research Division

operators

InterCity, British Rail

top speed

249 km/h

power

—

gauge

1,435 mm standard gauge

formation

14 cars per trainset (APT-P), 4 cars per trainset (APT-E)

From the Wikipedia infobox and Wikidata. Blank means the sources don't say.

family