British Rail Class 221

An unidentified Class 221 on the King Edward VII Bridge, 8 October 2005.

Virgin Trains Class 221 Super Voyager 221137 Mayflower Pilgrims at Camborne Station, Cornwall operating route VT1651, preparing to depart for Penzance. 24 December 2006.

Virgin Trains Class 221 Super Voyager 221113 "Sir Walter Raleigh" at Glasgow Central Station, Scotland. 5 May 2005.

The Class 221 Super Voyager is a train used by Virgin Trains in the United Kingdom. They were built by Bombardier Transportation for the British train operating company Virgin CrossCountry. They are similar to the Class 220 Voyager units, but they are built with a tilting mechanism to allow faster speeds on curved tracks, and most have five carriages rather than four. They can be distinguished from their Class 220 counterparts by their bogies, which appear far more substantial then the lightweight ones of the 220.

They are named after ‘famous voyagers’, as follows:

221 101	Louis Blériot	221 123	Henry Hudson
221 102	John Cabot	221 124	Charles Lindbergh
221 103	Christopher Columbus	221 125**	Henry the Navigator
221 104	Sir John Franklin	221 126	Captain Robert Scott
221 105	William Baffin	221 127	Wright Brothers
221 106	Willem Barents	221 128	Captain John Smith
221 107	Sir Martin Frobisher	221 129	George Vancouver
221 108	Sir Ernest Shackleton	221 130	Michael Palin
221 109	Marco Polo	221 131	Edgar Evans
221 110	James Cook	221 132	William Speirs Bruce
221 111	Roald Amundsen	221 133	Alexander Selkirk
221 112	Ferdinand Magellan	221 134	Mary Kingsley
221 113	Sir Walter Raleigh	221 135	Donald Campbell
221 114	Sir Francis Drake	221 136	Yuri Gagarin
221 115	Sir Francis Chichester	221 137	Mayflower Pilgrims
221 116	David Livingstone	221 138	Thor Heyerdahl
221 117	Sir Henry Morton Stanley	221 139	Leif Eriksson
221 118	Mungo Park	221 140	Vasco Da Gama
221 119	Amelia Earhart	221 141*	Amerigo Vespucci
221 120	Amy Johnson	221 142*	Matthew Flinders
221 121	Charles Darwin	221 143*	Auguste Picard
221 122	Doctor Who	221 144*	Prince Madoc

(*) Four-car unit.

(**) Four car-unit, but was built as five; the fifth coach was written off following a severe engine fire at Starcross on 8 December 2005 [1]. This coach is now being repaired.

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