Broken wheels

I was a very young member of staff at the time, and there was a great deal of fuss. in those days trains had cast spoked centres - rather like the wheels on a car - with steel tyres that could be replaced. Some of these centres had what are best called lumps on the spokes to allow for a proximity detector to count the spokes and hence infer the train speed. (In those days having a speedometer was a bonus and an accurate one was rare as hen's teeth!). This lump wasn't well designed and there were high stresses where the lump joined the spokes, and they cracked.

This experience led to the elimination of centres and tyres. A stock was last. All the trains have for many years used wheels that have no reuseable elements. Once all the wear allowance has been used, the wheel is scrap.

Hold up... A stock had wheels and tyres?! Huh, I thought that stuff was phased out long before the A-stock was even a concept!

My recollection is that 38TS onwards had spoked motor axles and solid trailer wheels. I think the 67TS had all solid wheels because of the reduced friction duty.

When did LU start using monobloc wheels?

IIRC all surface stock had spoked wheels. Even tyres on modern stock ar replacable. A stock had spoked wheels when I worked on them.

Tthe problems with the District wheels which caused problems were a batch made in Switzerland in 1926 (!!). The spokes had hairline fractures by 1971. All trains with those particular wheelsets had to be taken out of service for ultrasonic testing. There were considerable gaps in the service at the time and led to an extension of the life of Q stock!

The incident I remember was with a COP at PG, eastbound about 1630. I was 1600 spare and heard a train come in whistling for the fitter. It made a bit of a rattling when it stopped.

The motorman, Chad Morley, when asked by the fitter what's up replied "me wheels have fell orf". Lo and behold the flared side of the COP was resting on the platform.

To add to the fun, there was football at Chelsea that evening so the 14s would be slaughtered!

Then they discovered we'd soon run out of space to send trains to Wimbledon. PG w/b sidings were soon full up, e/b sidings could not be used! I was sent with my motorman to East Putney to relieve a crew. We worked shuttles East Putney-Wimbledon. eventually we had to put a train away as platforms at Wimbledon were used to berth stock as crews ran out of hours. One train was put in Wimbledon Park Depot and stayed there for quite a while until they got a loco to pull it back onto the 4th rail about a week later!

the line stayed shut for about a week while they decided how to move the errant train. It was evetually put on skids and taken back to Ealing Common for examination.

The earlier incident was in the late 60's, a Thursday evening. I was going to Kings Cross by no. 30 bus and saw an RLH passing Harrods with Railway emergency Service on the blinds, followed by a vast mixture of Railway Emergency Service buses. Whan I arrived at the Model Railway Club, I was told about the broken wheel on a train on the District, hence all the extra buses.