30 Years of the Jubilee Line

I remember 30 years ago when the Jubilee Line opened and it all seemed a bit of a let down. Unlike the previous Victoria Line, 80% of it was already in existence. Sure, the Victoria Line was opened in stages, with only a short part on day 1, but the route to Victoria was secured, financed and well on the way to being finished, whereas Stage 2 of the Fleet - sorry, Jubilee Line, out east towards the city, docklands and Thamesmead was just a dream in LT's, and Horace Cutler's eye. And it seemed (to me) that whilst the Stanmore Line gained a direct route via Bond Street and Green Park to Charing Cross, they also lost a much longer through service to Elephant & Castle at the same time. Ditto in reverse, where Bakerloo stations south of Baker Street now only had NB services to Harrow & Wealdstone/Watford Junction. I wondered why both lines couldn't have been combined in the style of the Northern Line, not realising this would be an operational nightmare, but however would allow diversions in an emergency instead of a complete shutdown (as today). Nor were the trains new, but rather recycled 1972's off the Northern Line and to all intents and purposes no advance on the Victoria Line's stock (in fact retrograde being neither OPO or ATO!). Even LT seemed less than proud of its new creation, as whilst there was a mass of printed material published for the Victoria Line, very little was produced for the Jubilee. The 'commemorative' booklet was a thin landscape paperback, whilst the 'quaility' hardback issued in association with the changes was all about David Gentlemen's woodcut decoration "A Cross for Queen Eleanor", which had absolutely nothing to do with the Jubilee, being installed on the Northern Line platforms at Charing Cross. Very late in the day, a Jubilee Line motif was devised combining an all-red LT roundel and a silver crown, but again this never had the widespread application of the Victoria Line 'V' symbol, which had made it onto train headboards, books, leaflets and even staff ties. The best part were the new or refurbished platforms between Baker Street and Charing Cross which were classic examples of the LT Design Research Unit (DRU) principles and a sort of updated, more colourful, version of the Victoria Line style.

Complete with a train pictured in High Barnet sidings!

Sounds as "exciting" as the Bakerloo, Piccadilly, and Northern (staff only) centenary celebrations in recent years.

If the Jubilee got a mug, I can see it now:

Thanks for the effort over the last 30 years.
NOW TRY HARDER.

If the Mk2s were "ATO-ready", then why weren't some of them converted for the Victoria instead of 72TS Mk1s when the Victoria line needed extra trains in the late 1980s, with some Mk1s moving from the Northern to the Bakerloo? Then there could have been more double ended 67/72TS units on the Vic.

A few 72TS Mk1s were converted to OPO when the Bekerloo needed extra trains, so why couldn't more of them have been converted?

Maybe because they were needed on the Northern Line?

As far as the 72 stock is concerned, the 72MkII stock was most certainly NOT "ATO ready". They only had very minor differences over the MkIs, like an "Auto" position on the selector barrel - which was never wired up. They had the 72 stock TBC, no door controls in the cab, and none of the ATO equipment like the auto-driver and safety boxes.

There was therefore no practical difference between converting 72MkI and 72MkII stock for the Victoria Line. In any case, if they wanted more double-ended units on the Victoria Line, there were/are plenty of original 1967 stock units which were retained as single-ended. The rationale for releaging some units to being single-ended was to avoid the cost of installing / maintaining certain new equipment in every cab in the fleet, regardless of the type of stock.

They weren't all needed on the Northern, it was some of these trains that were converted for the Victoria. Sending them to the Bakerloo instead of the Victoria wouldn't have made a difference to the Northern's fleet.

I also recall the headwalls on the Baker Street - Charing Cross Stage 1 section had/have provision for Victoria Line-style red/green/white starting signals, as do the Northern Line platforms as Charing Cross.

Yep. All the Baker Street - Charing Cross stations on the Jubilee line look very similar to those on the Victoria line - just in brighter colours. You can easily tell this was originally intended to be a line in a very similar mould to that of the Victoria.