'S' Stock Testing Commences

Was it a test-op who drove it? Presumably must have been pretty happy to get that duty!

Did anyone get any pics?

When will testing begin between Amersham and Watford?

I thought that's when passenger service operation was supposed to start?

;D ;D All I will say is thank goodness this thread is beginning to get some mileage. Very strange for a thread concerning the subject matter to remain only a couple of posts long for nearly a month. I thought as soon as testing became knowledge, this thread would have been hammered.

As I keep making everyone nauseous over, the D78 Stock Metroliner tour reputedly ran at 70 mph on the Met Fast on its run to Chalfont & Latimer. The Commercial Manager I think it was was on the PA and teling us how the speed was going up: the cab crew wanted to get up to that magic linespeed and it seems to have taken an age to get the last few mph out of the units!

Whilst the max design speed is of course useful, S stock will only go as fast as the permitted max line speed, which on the Met north of Finchley Road is generally 50mph with some 60mph sections, particularly north of Harrow-on-the-Hill.

A stock is limited to 50mph regardless of whether or not the max line speed is actually 60mph - only Chilterns are permitted to do the full 60mph.

On the District, the max line speed in the open sections east of Bromley-by-bow & west of East Putney/Turnham Green is just 45mph.

Quite frankly I don't think a metro style railway with short distances between stations really needs speedy trains - it's more about the rate of acceleration IMO. Even the Met isn't really all that special, in spite of having 'fast' services - the Picc also has 'fast' running between Acton & Hammersmith yet their max line speed is also 45mph and they seem to cope quite fine!.

I don't profess to know the full history behind the dropping of the maximum line speeds on the Met, but I do know that the current maximum [where signed] is 60 mph. As stated, A stock is limited to 50mph because of the bogie issue, but I would question whether the two are linked given there is a 10mph difference.

Maximum line speeds are not dictated purely by the stock that run on it - maximum line speeds are dictated by things like track condition, geometry, gradients, signalling capacity, signalling overlaps, local issues (such as leaf fall), etc, etc.

Above all else, the maximum line speed in a given area has to be safe - otherwise you'll get derailments as trains literally bounce off the track or climb the rails. It's much better to reach your destination in one piece than not at all!!

Many speed restrictions on SSR lines were added by Metronet and agreed by a complacent LUL management (in the days of PPP co-operation !) which served purely to preserve the life of assets. They served no safety function.

All SSR stocks are capable of and, occasionally, do run at speeds that exceed the permitted maximum for the type.

One hopes that with the appearance of S stock the speed limits will be increased (back) to sensible levels.

S stock is designed to have a top speed of 100km/h - 62mph as has been said.

All new trains are tested to 10% above the design speed which will get to 68mph; during test and hopefully never again.

I'm sure someone will try and get to 70mph; they'll probably succeed, but I don't want to hear about it!

It got up to 0mph last night. As far as i can gather, it stalled coming out of the dip into Wembley Park 1, eventually having to go back into the depot when they got movement. No word on what the cause was though.

There's a District libne driver saying 60mph isn't fast, 40mph is considered light speed on the District ;D ;D ;D

I suppose as the S stock will certainly accelerate faster than an A60 it won't really get in the way of the Chilterns.

It got gapped. The engineers current area and allied sections for the evening were cancelled in consequence......but at least I got to see an S stock close up on Monday night when it ran on the same timings. Though I am a traditionalist, I was actually pleasantly surprised when it came into my northern Met station, it fitted in better than I thought.

I have been off this week (hence the lack of posts) but as I understand it the train got gapped and the decision was taken to return to depot rather than start testing late. One of the problems is that when travelling to site we operate on 50% motors and as a result the risk of gapping is higher (half your motors are cut out). Just for the record - Last nights testing, along with some other future dates, was cancelled before this incident occured.

That is indeed strange, as we got a call just before 20.00 to say it was cancelled due to the previous nights problems. ;D