"Building the London Underground"

It wasn't a new programme - I saw it a few months ago!!

There was also a similar version on one of the discovery channels at the same time last night.

I can't remember which one it was now, but one of them showed 09ts in build in the factory.......then it being delivered by road and lowered in through the whole at Waterloo.......major faux pas!!

Yes, those of us here know a bit more than most, but neither were particularly well made IMO.

Are they made for UK audiences though? They seem to have an air of being a co-production with a USA group; little bits of US terminology being dropped here and there and such.

Whilst talking about Jubilee line trains if I remember!

Yes - inaccuracy in detail, but the actual shots of the 92ts being lowered in after refresh was great to watch - I'd not seen it from that angle before.

Actually they explained that bit in great detail (but it wasn't esay to listen to). They made it clear that the great leap was multiple unit control that was the changer. CSLR and central were indeed electrical from the start but used (very heavy) locos which had to run round at each end every time. And yes, the Met and district WERE steam until the Sprague system was advenced enough to apply it here - after a few dabbles testing third rail vs overhead.

Sorry, I might have been a bit confusing.

The W&C was always unit stock, though it appears that in the early days only one motor car was powered at any one time - power cables over the top of the trains only came later it seems (all a bit vague though).

The CSLR had locos until the advent of Standard stock in 1923 (which was delayed owing to the need to widen the running tunnels to the Yerkes gauge), though a motor car train was run as a (not successful) experimental train in 1899. Indeed the locos had extensive rebuilds as late as 1912.

The Central had locos until the first multiple unit stock in 1903.

The others were the Yerkes tube lines, multiple from the start, from 1906 onwards.

Source - J.Graeme Bruce

Having now watched the programme, and checked references...

Yes, MU operation ('distributed power') were a great advance: but whether it was the great enabler claimed (or at least implied) by the programme I have my doubts: that was electrification per se - even without mu the steam lines would have been electrified, and more electric tubes built - not as good, and probably not so many, but they would have come.

Sprague's mu system was developed in 1897, and was initially used that year in the electrification of the South Side Rapid Transit - part of the Chicago L: by that time two other parts of it were already electrically worked.

The Waterloo & City was always mu (from opening in 1898), but had power lines along the train - a system which did not exactly find favour with the authorities. A similar system was used in the early days on the Paris Metro. The advantage of Sprague's (and other systems) was that they used low voltage, low current control circuits, with no need for power cables along the train.

New York's first subway was not opened until autumn 1904; by which time the Sprague system was already in use in London on the CLR and the GN&CR, and on one of the the MDR's experimental A stock trains - the other used an alternative system from Westinghouse, who also provided the mu equipment for the Mersey Railway electrification of 1903.

I'm just catching up with this programme. I'm finding the tone quite hard to deal with. Don't even ask what I thought of the computer graphic of Big Ben and its tower falling over.