C69 Design Faults

TP is the person who will know when he was a Motorman he did a report on C stock.

Doesn't a 67TS driver have to hold a deadman when driving in manual?

If that is the case, how do the inner end 1972mk1 stock driving motors operate in the depot for shunting? Would you drive them as normal in the depot or were they provided with a vig button?

When running on tripcock the vigilence button is not "live" on 67TS hence the reason for double manning for off line stock moves.

The 1972 Mk1 cabs working in the middle of some 1967 stock sets retain conventional sprung dead man handles incorporated in the CTBC so if a train is being shunted as a 4 car set or, for that matter, being driven from one of these middle cabs in the event of defect. The T/Op needs just the one hand and a lot less awkward pressure than the Vigillance button needs!!

Yes I did do a report on them. How long have you got??? :-) I worked at Baker Street when the Met depot was there and I was there when the C Stock replaced the CO/CP Stocks. First, the braking was terrible. The design was poor, having retarders and load-weigh systems working in opposition to each other. The braking was actually worse when empty. Sunday mornings were a nightmare. Even the Westinghouse was bad, It was esay to run out of air because the feed up rate on the auxiliary was too slow in release. You could run into the next station without enough air in the auxiliary to get an application.

The cab layout was horrible but it was based on the 67TS because some forward looking but misguided souls thought the whole network would go ATO in a few years. The phone was in a little compartment behind the driver's seat. This had a sprung door and the only way you could open it whilst driving was to put one arm behind your back, poke a finger under the bottom of the door and push the handset up off its rest. When it was loose, you pulled the door open so that the handset could drop to the floor. Then you could bend down and pick it up. Mind you, in those days it was only the cab to cab phone and I used it mostly to chat to the guard (if he was a chatty type) whilst doing a Circle or two.

They always had the cab door interlock but we just cut it out to get some air in the cab. Then there were the draughts, the stupid heaters in the roof, the metacones, the metacone mountings, the compressor oil refilling, the cab desk layout, the cab light switch, the window wiper controls, the side door deals, the lack of cab handrails, the cab seat, the persistent audible warnings, the volt-amp relay settings causing repeated motors dropping out, windows swinging open, rate 2 was useless, even on a dry rail so we always drove in rate 1, etc. etc. + all the other things I have thankfully forgotten.

LU train design went down the proverbial tubes after the 67TS and never really recovered. The D Stock is OK but only because it had a prototype in the 73TS, where they ironed out all the bugs. Even then they had to replace the bogies. The 83s were an insult and the 92s not much better. My impression of the 95/96s is that they are a bit better, apart from the ridiculous driving controls. We must not prejudge the new stocks, much as though we might wish to but my all time favourite is the A Stock. It is quite simply a driver's train.

One has to remember that the much-loved 38TS had many problems, not least that the doors on the "58 trailers" would open while the train was in motion.

LT design was not perfect. The "pre-war" RTs had to be taken off the road while engineers discovered how to get the brakes to work; and the first production RMs needed several hundred modifications before they worked as intended.