Text3: British Railways

Britain has one of the most efficient and heavily used railway systems in the world. Both freight and long-distance passenger services now operate without subsidy from the Government and in direct competition with other forms of transport. British Rail has а computerized freight information and traffic control system known as TOPS (Total Operations Processing System). In Britain а network of city to city services operates at speeds of up to 100 mph (161 km/h). On some lines the speed is raised to 125 mph (201 km/h).

The 1970s saw British Rail successfully introduced high speed diesel train services. The InterCity 125 High Speed Train (HST) was introduced on some services, and the InterCity brand was adopted. This created an increase in passengers using the railways and improved British Rail's finances. The InterCity125 was an outstanding success and is still in widespread use.

British Rail also started development of the world's first tilting train – the Advanced Passenger Train (APT) achieving 150 mph (241 km/h). The APT is powered either by electric motors or by gas turbines, and it can use existing track. The object of the tilt was to minimise the discomfort to passengers caused by taking the curves at high speed.

Between 1994 and 1997 British Rail was privatized and passed to Railtrack. Privatization made an improvement in passenger services. But the public image of rail travel was severely damaged because of the series of significant accidents caused by a train going through a red light and by a rail fragmenting due to the development of microscopic cracks.

Following these accidents Railtrack imposed over 1200 speed restrictions across its network and started an extremely costly nationwide track replacement programme.

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in demand for rail transport in Britain. Railways operate in direct competition with road hauliers and airlines.

Questions for discussion:

1. Do British Railways have a subsidy from the Government?

2. What is another name for British computerized freight information and traffic control system?

3. What speed do British city to city services operate at?

4. When and why did British Rail introduce HST and APT?

5. What do the abbreviations “HST” and “APT” mean?

6. What speed do “HST” and “APT” trains achieve?

7. What happened in the British railway services between 1994 and 1997?

8. What were the reasons of the railway accidents after privatization?

9. What did the authorities do to improve the situation on the rail track?

10. What do British railways compete with?

Дата добавления: 2015-10-16