Atomic Systems

In my many trips up the tartan track i see quite a few pendelino's and noticed that in having 2 pantographs only 1 is used. While i understand this, what i would like to find out is which pantograph should be used, as sometimes it the leading one raised and sometimes the trailing,and this bears no relationship to the direction of travel

I believe it should be the leading pan as the behaviour of the pantograph is more friendly to the OLE if the "elbow" is pointing away from the direction of travel.

However, pendolinos are so rubbish that they'll just have whichever one is in working order raised.

I don't know about British thinking, but common continental practise on the latest locos is to use pantographs with the elbow pointing in the direction of travel. This is, in general, not applicable to older locomotives. Britain is odd in that standard practise used to be to have the front pantograph up: all other European countries tradtionally prefer the rear one.

Nick

class 76's and 77's 81's 82's 83's and 84's used to have 2 pantographs or as with 85's to 87's used to have a double eldow pantograph.

arabiandisco wrote:I believe it should be the leading pan as the behaviour of the pantograph is more friendly to the OLE if the "elbow" is pointing away from the direction of travel.

However, pendolinos are so rubbish that they'll just have whichever one is in working order raised.

Apparently the Hornby model of the Pendolino is just like the real thing; it won't tilt properly and you can't walk through it....