A Stock withdrawals - Discussion

The A stock have played a huge part in my growing up from a toddler up till now. I have used them pretty much all my life whenever we'd go on a family trip to the city it was an A stock (Or a 92ts depending on exactly where we were going). Then early secondary school years it was off to Uxbridge on an A stock to go the cinema, and now farewell bashing the trains on an intensive programme of about 200 miles per week.

2004 moquette change was something I remember quite clearly, not sure why but it was pretty major to me.

I remember I took the family to do the last day of the East London line and remember finding it how weird it was to have A stock not only in 4 car formation but finding the funny orange coloured maps actually useful!

I used to believe that the banging noise coming from the wheels was caused by chewing gum getting stuck to the wheel treads and creating a bump, was surprised to learn that it was infact the wheels locking up.

On a short holiday to York in 2005, I was pleasantly surprised by the lively driver attaining very good speed between Wembley Park and Finchley Road, very bouncy!

I always knew a Met train was coming when waiting for a train on the Uxbridge line when in the distance I could see only one light from one side of the train rather than two either side like on the 73ts.

I used to take piano lessons near Preston Road station and every week this involved an A stock, I used to love the smell of brake dust as we got off the train at Preston Road, but always noticed the unusually slow accelaration heading northbound back home.

I used to prefer sitting in the rear DM's when I was about 6 - 10 as I could kneel on the flip down seats at the rear of the carriage and pretend I was the driver by pretending the car-end windows were the windscreen

All in all, quite literally many big boxes of memories being taken away for scrap. I never thought I'd see the Met without the musical A stock but the day will unfortunately come.

Its good to hear that people feel the way I do about the A Stock, I started using them in the early 1970's in my teens for trips to Wembley Pk (to see England play at Wembley) and to Baker Street on Saturdays as the first part of a journey to watch football in London.
Then at 16 I used them every day for work, Northwick Pk to Moorgate, for the next 24 years give or take some Northern Line journeys in the late 70's to and from work via Burnt Oak (loved the 59 stock) or to drive in when I did nights.
I always wondered whether I would see one bound for Rayners Lane to turn back short,never did, but did see and photograph one going to Ruislip last June, that was a surprise.
We are lucky in London to have had such a wealth of wonderful transport vehicles such as the RT,RF,RLH and Routemaster buses and on the tube, the 38,59,62,67 stock and of course the CO/CP and A stock, wonderful both in design and also the longevity of service to the capital in many cases.
I suppose I took them for granted over the years, they were always there and its only over the last few weeks, as I have been out and photographed them, that I have looked at them in a different way as they are disappearing, the Met Line won't be quite the same when they are gone.

today's scrap train video's

Those units are correctly shown on Wikipedia as Rail Adhesion Trains, and looking at the edit history for the page, the only changes made today were to show 5120 and 5122 as scrapped. The colours for 'withdrawn' and 'RAT' are similar though.

9 A Stock in service on wednesday, 7 of which passed Northwood when there.

its a better train all round,despite its age.it has been very flexible throughout the years as we know and emerged from the refurbishment well.it has that something.



which is dated 1/6/12

Don't say that, you'll jynx it. When it was suggested that I take a snap of 5130, I said, "There's plenty enough time." What happens? Six days later it's off of LU metals.

Just shows how significant and long serving the A stock is really, memories from your generation, and memories from mine!

OH No! two of my favourites! had a superb ride out to Amersham and back on them on train 413 on Friday 1. June.

Is there an exact science as to the order of units being withdrawn? I presume the answer to this is yes, but it just seems rather strange, that this pair of crackers is heading off, when other units in seemingly much worse nick e.g. 5034-5035, 5090-5091, 5100-5101 and the already condemned Houdini unit 5160-5161 are still hammering on.

Please don't get me wrong! I'd rather that none of the A Stock were heading for the great scrapyard in the sky, but as has been discussed at length on this thread, love them or hate them (I personally love them!) their time is almost up.

Could someone confirm if possible what the last working of 5096-5097 and 5108-5109 was please?

Many thanks for any info.

Best Wishes To All

Green Lion.

Thank you for the advice. Interesting as 5096+5108 ran only last night as peak only working T474.

the leather bucked fire extinguisher also,these were once common,they were on the 38 stock also.

they must have been removed because of vandalism that appeared to take hold in the 1980s

All,

Aparantly the last day of A stock operations is Friday 29th June. Is this correct and what is its diagram?

Wouldn't surprise me if it aint

I too would be surprised if it was, maybe the last day of A Stocks being in service every day on the Met - being allowed to spend a day out of service here and there.