....the past 3 times I've been to London I've been on a virgin.....
???????
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......Of course, underfloor engines are frankly a mistake anyway, regardless of body profile. It's just a bad and unnecessary compromise for a top tier IC train, in the designed by committee IEP.
Those engines won't be running for the greater part of their journeys, where they'll be powered from the overhead AC.
Note also that these trains were not designed by a "committee".
The IEP (that's a programme by the way and not the name of any train) produced a series of detailed specifications. The bidders for the contract designed the trains to meet those specifications, using their own interpretations of how to meet the specs.
Hitachi's original version of their winning bid (the SET), placed the diesel generators in driving power cars (ala HST without the traction motors).
For reasons long debated and deliberated about in this place and elsewhere, the design was later changed to using multiple underfloor engines. Who decided to use this solution is open to debate.
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Ironically, Had the IEP been not thrown upon us in a do as your told scenario by the DfT, and First got their own way then we might have had a Non Tilting and longer UK version of Siemens ICE TD as First were originally touting as their choice of HST replacement.
Isn't that urban myth and nonsense?
The Intercity express programme was created largely in part due to the incumbent operators at the time (GNER & FGW) and the ROSCO's, having no interest in replacement stock so far out in the future and were in no financial position to place orders for trains due to be delivered two franchise terms beyond their then current tenure.
FGW talked about future trains, but were not in any sort of position to do anything about it within the prevailing short franchise holding periods.
GNER were struggling to look beyond the end of their own nose, such was the perilous state of their parent company and their own inability to meet their over-bid financial franchise commitments.
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