Toblerone train turns out to be pointless

Lots of excitement about our triangular train last week. Phil Byrom tells us about the Hastings line, ‘where the tunnels were built so pointy that special rolling stock is required with straighter sides than usual, as standard curved-sided stock provides insufficient clearance of the tunnel walls… the “pointiness” of the tunnel profile varies with the weight of earth… It occurred to me that this might also be the reason for the Japanese triangular tunnels.’ ‘It’s the tilting version of the bullet train. If they weren’t narrower at the top, two trains would hit each other as they passed,’ points out Paul Friday, drily. Luckily, reader Neil Shaw knows the guys at the uk.railways newsgroup (don’t ask), who provided this helpful explanation: ‘The train is a former Kinki Nippon Railway – “Kintetsu” – KuMo270 series EMU. It was built in 1977 by Kinki Sharyo for the 2’6”/762mm gauge Hokusei line from Nishi-Kuwana to Ageki, near Nagoya. This line had been set to close, but was instead taken over by the Sangi Railway.’ Oh, and it’s not triangular. Someone squashed it up using Photoshop, as we can now reveal above.