Hi if you've read my other (few) posts you may have noticed I'm interested in the APT. I asked if you could see it from a public accessible place... and got some cracking accurate replies complete with a Google street view link So I went to Crewe... and then I posted a link to my blog with a few of the 80 odd photos I took.
Now to break cover as it were, I'm a freelance features writer (Writing speculatively then selling to a magazine I've been in Cycling magazines, Writing Magazine and most recently a 4 page article complete with photos on Stone Circles in Derbyshire Life) I've got an article about a major WW2 event hopefully going in a national magazine in November) I'm currently working on an article on the APT and have had a pitch accepted by a major nostalgia magazine subject to a suitable article.
Has anybody got any first hand stories of the APT (either APT-E or APT-P) were you on the development side, were you part of the crew on the service in the 80's. perhaps you were a V.I.P on its first passenger run in December 1981? Got to be your own experiences not hearsayplease.
PM me for details. What I can offer is an accurate use of your words, what I can't offer is payment for your story (as feature writing doesn't pay as much as you'd think!) I can be as vague or as accurate as you want with your name in the article.
So what's your story?
My memory is from early 80s - will check my ticket which I found in a cupboard at my mum and dad's house earlier this summer - prob dates from c1984 - feel free to use any of this if you like - if you want more info please PM me.
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I was in my early teens at the time. The station staff at my home station, Berwick in Sussex, knew that I am my dad were interested in railways. The station master (probably not his job title by then but that was what he was regarded as by me!) had become aware of the APT running in public passenger service as a relief train, and suggested he could book us on it with reserved seats if we were interested. We certainly were. A good example of staff promoting sales of BR travel.
My dad booked the tickets with our family railcard, and travelling north as far as Preston allowed a quick change onto a return train and the ability to get back to the south coast at a reasonable time of night. The tickets were issued on standard Edmonson card ticket stock. I kept the tickets and some literature from on board which I recently re-discovered in my parents house.
I'd already 'cabbed' the APT, thanks to a friendly driver, when seeing it on the platform at Euston, no doubt on the occasion of a different test or relief run.
Of course with hindsight it would have been better to have travelled through to Glasgow and returned the next day, but at the time we had no idea the APT would not be rolled out in full service in due course, so there didn't seem to be any need to have anything other than a 'sample run'.
Memories that stand out to me include the tartan upholstery, the sleek, modern interior, tapered cabin interior to facilitate the tilt, rapid acceleration and smooth running at speed. I had rarely travelled on other then modern trains like HSTs so my general benchmark was Southern Region Mk 1 EMUs so this really seemed like the future.
We stepped off the APT at Preston and almost immediately joined a rather busy 'conventional' Inter City train back to Euston. It seemed to have none of the futuristic panache of the APT.
We must have enthused about the trip when we got home as my mum, who was a documentary film maker, was inspired enough to come up with the idea to do a short film about the APT that would promote it. She made a number of enquiries to the BR public relations office to pursue this idea. Clearly their unspoken reluctance must have been down to the uncertainty about the prospects of a full service launch.
Mum also came home from work one day with a Hornby APT model, which we ran on my childhood train set, but she always refers to the model as "her APT".
It's a great shame the Government were not prepared to back the development of the APT with the resources the project needed. A recession and negative political attitudes to nationalised undertakings in the 1980s probably put paid to that, but it seemed to me that if things had been just a little bit different the train would easily have captured the public's imagination, just as the HST did. Our family's imagination was certainly captured.
Edit - date of travel was Friday 24 August 1984. Price of ticket seems to have been £15.15 half fare for my dad, £1 for me (Family Railcard Rate). Basically day return Berwick Sussex to Preston.
I kept a timetable that shows between 8 aug to 31 aug 1984 weds and Friday only - dept Euston 16.30, arr Preston 18.59, dep Preston 19.02, Motherwell 20.54 Glasgow Cntl 21.12
I also kept a folded A4 leaflet which styles the train as APT-P The Intercity Development Train.