Ealing Broadway Sidings

I think some works trains used to use them, but from when I last passed they looked very rusty. CO/CP and R stock was stored in them prior to scrapping in the early 80s so maybe we'll see the D stock there in a few years

The sidings are technically still used in as that drivers are taught them, but in reality I don't know of any District line train that has been there in the 6 years that I've been on the District.

I could well be wrong (I must pay more attention! ;D), but I don't believe there is a walking route to & from the sidings at Ealing Broadway.....

Re the link Central to District

The Auto Tube Rambler was the last passenger train that I know used the link. Presumably previously it was used for stock transfers? Is it still 'padlocked out of use'?

Will the remaining mainline crossovers to the platform roads also be moved/lengthened/renewed in order to allow for higher entry speeds, or at the very least, less noise/bumps entering and exiting the station?

Shame

It may not have to be used in a possesion.
There are ATP test loops and plungers on the District side to test trains before going to the Central. You can still see the light boxes for these in the four foot.

I am not not sure that they still work though, but did when the Central first went ATP.

They're mostly smashed aren't they?

Interesting! Ealing Broadway was one of my signal maintenance sites (Picc Line Signals) where I did regular point maintenance. My belief and that of my colleagues at the time was that the route from District to Central was simply not properly recommissioned at all. I recall the problems we encountered, all with Wood Lane as I recall when trying to test it in order to prepare for the transfer of stock which was a relatively regular feature for a short while in the late 1990s. IIRC the control or lack thereof was due to incorrect Central Line non-safety circuitry. Earls Court could offer the slot when requested but Wood Lane were unable to request it. Thus two TOs were required to set this up in the EAB SER and IMR although in practice there was usually a supervisor in the SER when we employed in such stock transfers. At the time we generally did manual routing at the IMRs anyway as a TO was required to get stock out of the South Harrow sidings (track fuses were removed due to rusty rails and so had to be replaced/removed each time a train entered or exited the sidings). It was then a race to drive from South Harrow to Ealing Broadway and beat the train, although the train reversed in the sidings at Acton.

My recollection is that the crossover went out of use because the route could not be used without Signal staff to assist and it thus relied upon staff availability and Picc Signals was always a few TOs light which eventually led to the closure of Heathrow, Northfields, Hammersmith and King's Cross TO depots. It didn't help that at the time we were also responsible for Jubilee line (not JLE) maintenance which we covered from the three remaining depots at Acton, Earls Court and Arnos Grove to support our colleagues at the only Jub depot at Wembley Park.
So to hear that the crossover at EAB is going does make me wonder if this is simply one of those chicken and egg situations. I'm sure it will be missed at some future time and I can't help wondering why Metronet seemed so disinterested (at the time) in getting the route to work as it did before CLPT interfered with it.

I doubt you could safely get much faster entry speeds into those dead end platforms.

There were a few who were interested - indeed it did work in a fashion via a frig at Wood Lane. However, it fell foul of the 'rusty rails' standards, it would need a principles test to recomission it and there were other issues preventing it from happening.

Ironically it will have to be used as part of the work to remove it - there isn't enough room to stack all the engineer's trains up when the crossovers at EAB are being renewed!

The sidigs at Ealing Broadway were used to stable 2 car units when trians were coupled and uncoupled for rush hours, in the good old days when we ran 6 or 8 cars.

The last train I ran in there was 2 pairs of Q38 pilot motors with 4 car R stock in between just after the conversion of r stock to 7 cars. Ironically all the scrap cars were R59's! What a waste. We brought the train from Upminster Depot, motorman Thomas for PG and motorman Patel from Acton bringing up the rear.

Yes there was an extra longitudinal seat somewhere that narrowed the cab of an R49, but surely the R59s were all trailers? And as '21146' I should know a bit!

Your right he must have said R49 cabs were smaller, R59's were all NDM's.

I didn't realise more Q38's were converted in 1959 hence the R49's appearing in the middle of the R38 number sequence !

Yeah, I dare say I'd have traded down too, but probably have been in a minority ;D ;D