[hristov]

What this article left unsaid was that the project was started before the time of Margaret Thatcher but ended in production during Margaret Thatcher's premiership. Margaret Thatcher is well known to oppose the public rails and all other kinds of public works. It would have been very easy and popular then to vilify any large public project as a boondoggle.

The result is that the English still use trains (because their large population requires them) but get to import their trains from France, Italy and Japan.

[keithpeter]

Rail privatisation was a John Major initiative, not Thatcher.

Quote from OP

"The Italian firm Fiat bought the patents for the APT's tilting technology and used it to help develop its Pendolino trains, now manufactured by the French multinational Alstom."

Export of technological know-how is something of a UK speciality (ARM chips, fluidised bed furnaces for efficient combustion of coal &c).

"A six-car APT, including a driving trailer and buffet carriage, is in place at Crewe Heritage Centre. It's clearly visible to passengers passing by on the adjacent West Coast Main Line where it ran for a few months."

I go through Crew on a regular basis, and the APT is easily seen from the track. Along with the rather impressive dents along the side of the coaches resulting from a failure of the tilting mechanism.

[bbrks]

Small world :) I live there and got to go on board the APT with my Grandad when I was younger, as well as run the model railway at the Heritage Centre with him.

[keithpeter]

Excellent. Now this is really a long shot - do you know of the llama farm (or farm keeping about a dozen llamas) that is one the way into Crewe from Stafford? They always surprise me on the way up to Liverpool...