A Stock - Delivery Route from Cravens

The GC was still in existence then,could probably go direct to Ruislip from Sheffield.

Rail transport for rail vehicles is still available today. The S stock was delivered by rail from Derby and the 24 stock is expected to be delivered by rail from both Vienna and Goole.

*and sent back to the factory for CBTC installation and returned to LU by rail!

For unrelated reasons I had come across the identical subject on another forum from 2014 :

www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/87993-a6062-deliveries-from-cravens-to-london-transport/

(that interestingly one post suggests 'ask District Dave' !!!)

That forum does appear to give the answer for the delivery route if you add different posts together .

However, I suggest they are adrift when speculating on motive power; when they start talking about 30s / 31s / Brush2s / whatever you want to call the things, Tinsley depot, and air brakes, they are way off then as :

(1) there was no such thing as an air brake Brush2 at this time, this was vacuum braking days, so unbraked train
(2) Tinsley depot was not open then, it did not open until 1964
(3) the main Sheffield are diesel depot was Darnall at the time in question, which is an odd oversight exactly because Cravens were in Darnall
(4) one of the later posts quotes a BR 5MT 75ooo kettle, and refers to a picture, but no link to it

So take the gen posted with some salt. It does agree with GC, but, could be an assumption. If they are so adrift on traction they could be on route too.

Somewhere, long ago, I am sure I have seen a train of A60 stock taken at Rotherwood, but no idea where that is to be found, and I don't think it had a loco on it. Rotherwood is very close to Darnall were the Cravens plant was.


Googling this issue with A60 and GCR as keywords is interesting - as one of the bridgeworks with todays GCR and their reunification works is over the A60 road.

In 1995 usually with Class 37 loco;
Neasden-Amersham-Aylesbury (loco run-around)-High Wycombe-Old Oak Common sidings (evening layover)-Reading-Oxford-Leamington-Burton on Trent-Derby.

1) and 3) if it was being run down they would actually divert as much traffic as possible away from it (that they did) to justify closure (which they did), not put traffic on it.

If GC were used, it would not be for any of those reasons, but being the simplest, run down or not, cost or not, especially if it had to move as an unbraked load.

(sarcasm alert) I need smelling salts, this outbreak of sanity is too much excitement for me.

I suppose that the rail option works out the cheapest when a large fleet of trains has to be moved and if sent by road would require a large fleet of specialist HGVs - and drivers - whereas if sent by rail many tube cars would be sent as one train.

I just hope that there are no clearance issues - especially on the route from Vienna. My thoughts are for the underside of the tube trains as I cannot imagine width / length / height clearances being a problem. 

Photos exist of LT stock being loco hauled down to Bletchley, then the Oxford - Cambridge to Calvert, thence to Aylesbury and West Ruislip
There is one photo of such stock passing Quainton Road
And although that route is no longer available, it will become available again one day

Not sure if you are agreeing or not with me.

GE was mostly unbraked yes. Much of the unbraked coal traffic the GC carried in its latter days was actually diverted FROM other lines especially from the WCML in its 25 kV wiring electrification works phase.

My point was not about unbraked trains per se, they were common then, but about the GC was the primary unbraked route, so would have been used, while other traffic avoided WCML anyway.

Question.

Possibly daft. Maybe I have misunderstood something. But here goes.

When was the link at Ruislip opened between Central and Met ? I thought it was c.1970 ?

Not there when A60 stock was delivered ? If not, was Ruislip really the main line destination for delivery trains from Cravens, would they not, if the link were not there, simply have gone direct to Neasden ?

I can see some sense in tube gauge stock e.g. from MetCam going to Ruislip, but why would surface gauge stock be delivered there when there was, at the time, no LT surface gauge escape route ? Did A60 come back out of Ruislip on to BR main line then back to LT somewhere ?

Or have I got something fundamentally wrong here ?

I have it in the back of my mind that the western end of the Central line, at least as far east as North Acton, was cleared for Surface Stock. This meant that such trains could, from Ruislip depot, reach Ealing Broadway for the connection to the District Line.

ok ta

Well, so far one reply from the RMweb: I have seen at least two pictures of A60/A62 stock being hauled along the GC to Neasden. The one I can find easily (Steam Memories: 1950's and 1960's Great Central Lines) shows B16/3 61463 hauling a set past Bagthorpe Junction. Date sometime around July 61."

No doubt more will follow. I have copies of LT Magazine from when A stock was new, I'll have a look through those when I get time.

C69 stock was delivered to West Ruislip. The connection to the Met was being built when I was a guard at Ricky, mid 1973 to early 1974. It had not been commissioned when I sadly left the job. I have personally taken a couple of photos of a C69 at ealing Broadway Central Line, circa 1971. It came via North Acton, cross over to the DR, then to Acton Town for use on the test track and in as far as Earls court and High Street. A week or som later i got a cab ride in one from Acton Town to Hammersmith.

In 1974 I became a secondman at Rugby where there was a lot of forme Woodford Halse drivers. None of them mentioned hauling underground stock on the GC, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen.

There was still a lot of unbraked and partially fitted freight on the WCML in my time on there, the GC had been closed by then.

Taken from a post on this Forum by a former poster:

Was this envisaged when the depot was built? How was there so much undercover space?