S stock delivery & introduction - discussion

There should be 80 delivered to the District and C&H depots and there are a further 5 (I think) at Ruislip so that leaves 48 still to come to London. I'll double check the numbers on Monday.

My notes show, as of now, T149-159, T163-167, T169, T176-178 and T180 are at Old Dalby (21 trains)

T68, T81, T99 and T142 have been returned to Derby.

This leaves T168, T170-175, T179 and T181 onwards still to be delivered. Most, if not all (?) must be built by now?

T = Train build number.

I've just checked the delivery list and 48 is right (including the 6 that are tied up with the S8s going back to Derby).

Are the 2 S7+1 still being used or are they just hanging around, the S8 mod work has been completed.

Forgive me if this is the wrong place. Are there currently any S stock in Derby for signalling testing? Are there any plans for one to go up if not in the near future?

I have heard there is a battery loco heading up that way as well for signal testing.

Cool. Means my source is perfectly correct

Would there be anywhere (sensible) to put them?

Since the prevailing view seems to be that they are maximising the use they get out of the D-Stock, is there even any point in getting new deliveries if they're not going to use them?

How many S stocks V D stocks are running on the District line ATM?

They are not entirely incompatible. The slow delivery could be because of training, supply chain etc - or indeed Vivarail not being ready to take any more D stock yet. The preponderance of D stocks at quiet times could be sweating the assets - i.e using the D stock and leaving the S stock in the sidings

To be fair, the deadline for D stock withdrawal is summer 2016 - this is still very achievable. Most of the S stocks have already been built and it would be easy to accelerate delivery speed if that becomes necessary.

There are multiple reasons for the delays, most of which are already mentioned even if I do mention them again.
Yes, infrastructure has been a problem. I am not sure if all of the necessary power upgrades have been completed, but as there was not much of SSL left to upgrade it should be finished by now.
The drivers have been trained up for a while, so they should not be a problem.
The one part that everyone has forgotten (and in my eye the main reason of the delay) is the training of the District line maintenance staff. Just to get a license to test the S stock trains for service, all the maintenance staff have to complete a 6 week basic systems course followed by a 4 day prep course. There have been massive setbacks to this recently caused by the strikes a few months ago amongst many other things delaying the restart of these courses.
This is before you get to other natural wastage of trained people retiring or moving depot/shifts causing more shortage of trained staff.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that. I do feel that if people are posting speculation as fact, or posting ideas that contradict the general sense of what is going on, it's not unreasonable to try and 'shake the tree' and see if someone can bring things into sharper focus.

Despite appearances, I'm not really that bothered about when the S Stock upgrade is complete. The more different types of stock one gets to use the better!



What I've been finding a little perplexing is that contradictory statements are being made and no one seems to care, or try and separate facts from Chinese whispers.



Indeed, it was most definitely not intended to be impolite to anyone. As I said, it was a 'shaking the tree' exercise; basically hoping that someone who had not noticed the contradictory information (and who might have added something of a clarification if he had), would be alerted and, perhaps, post.

Apologies to anyone who thought I was directing criticism at them, personally.