An interesting theory

[dbromage@omni.com.au (David Bromage)]

Having gone deep into some of the VFT bids, there are some interesting
coincidences of timing which have come up in one of the bids.

Firstly, there was always planned to be a successor to the XPT, called the
HPT. It was a more powerful but slightly slower train, but still faster
than conventional locomotives. Change of government in the 1980s and the
project was scrapped. The Goninan bid for the HPT was later reworked into
the EL class. Had it gone ahead, we might have seen something like an EL
on each end of the old Brisbane Limited and running at 140km/h. 

The Xplorers started running in 1993 to Armidale, Moree and Canberra.
Countrylink then leased three X2000 cars in 1995 to examine upgraded
services to Canberra. In early 1996, loocomotive hauled services were
introduced to Griffith and Broken Hill.

Since 1995, the X2000 has been much improved based on the demonstration
runs in the USA and Australia. Adtranz has a sucessor to the X2000 which
can do up to 300km/h, either electric or diesel powered. 

Griffith and Broken Hill only got locomotive hauled trains as a temporary
measure. It was always intended to replace them with Xplorers.... after a
new diesel powered tilt train took over the Canberra service! 

Tilt trains may have taken over some XPT services and would probably have
been able to work in multiple with the Xplorers, hence the decision to
order the Xplorers from the same company which could deliver the tilt
trains.

As long ago as late 1995, ABB (now Adtranz) proposed a diesel version of
the X2000 for Australia. The latest tilt train can have either 5000hp
electric or 3000hp diesel locomotives at each end (no driving trailer for
300km/h). I'm not suggesting that Countrylink was going to be running them
at 300km/h, but maybe at up to 200km/h after a few years. On its tour, the
X2000 went to a lot more places than Canberra.

1997 arrives and the VFT is on the cards again. Countrylink and Adtranz
join forces with other companies to make a bid, including track upgrades.
They didn't make it, but I think the intent was there to do more than Just
Sydney to Canberra, or even Sydney to Melbourne.

The Adtranz tilting and suspension system was improved after the X2000
visited Australia. It was already very good, but is even better today. It
is very suitable for Australian track. The airbag suspension is above the
tilting mechanism, which means that you don't need any special sort of
airbags. You can also absorb a lot more lateral movement in the bogies,
so you don't need the tilt mechanism reaching up into the body to keep the
train centred. 

As an aside, the Fiat tilting system proposed for the Siemens tilt train
(Inter Capital Express) is not suited to Australian track. The suspension
is below the tilt, therefore you need to absorb a lot more lateral
movement in the suspension. A lot of the mechanism is basically to keep
the train centered at all times. The Adtranz system doesn't need this. As
an aside, I think the Siemens tilt train (and Transrapid) is inherently
dangerous as they have passengers in the leading vehicles at very high
speeds. 

Back to Adtranz, you will remember the great VIP tour with the X2000 ran
to Wollongong. I'm pretty sure Countrylink always had in mind a southern
line service via Wollongong. The route was one reason (possibly the ONLY
reason) that Bob Carr supported Transrapid. 

Now am I way off here, or does it sound reasonable? 

Cheers
David