How reliable is the A60-62 stock?

Sorry to burst the bubble, and much as I would like to claim they remain tremendous workhorses, I'm afraid the truth is their reliability is much less over recent months.

They are dogged by minor failures that, due to their life and the fact that they won't now receive any proper attention, keep on affecting their performance and availability for service.

The night before last, no less than 4 A-stocks were withdrawn from service over a 2-hour period - all with what I would consider "lack of attention / life expired / sticky tape coming undone defects. It's down to Service Control to try and smooth everything out with the trains that are left, so that the service status remains "good."

But that 'attitude' is surely totally unacceptable?

If the same approach was applied to the S stock, then the lack of serviceability on those units would also be in the toilet!

There is a vast difference between 'no parts available' and can't be @rsed to repair this!

The reason London Transport could squeeze up to 40 years out of a bus was simple.

Every 3.5 years or so, it went into Aldenham, was stripped down to basics, THOROUGHLY overhaulled, re-assembled and put back into service AS GOOD AS NEW.

I just hope that when the final day actually comes the depot staff are free and able to do the best job possible for the units available. It would be nothing short of an insult to see the final ones limp around like a 3 legged race horse to the glue factory.

I do agree with Met Control, however, speaking to a driver recently, the view is that they are actually one of the more reliable fleets in the combine.

I've got a suspicion that the bathtub curve is just a bit over emphasized... the vast majority of systems will follow that trend, yes, but the actual line must surely be affected quite substantially by the generation, amount, and complexity of sub systems used. Silicon/germanium chips become obsolete designwise within a dozen months or so, but something mechanical takes far longer.

The principal might follow that curve, but when the Sssstock come to meet its maker (unitentional likening of prjb to God!) if it receives the same level of care in its final years as the A stock is now, it'll fail a damn sight quicker.

I would be very very Very interested to see a graph of yearly reliability figures of TfL/LTs stocks. I wonder if such a thing exists for more than a decades worth of figures somewhere.

I agree that the A Stock at 50 is much more 'solid' than maybe a lot of other stocks will be at that age. As an outsider I'm not privvy to the true figures but I never heard of Met delays/suspension due to faulty train. However, since the closure of the ELL there has been an increase in the amount of 'spare' sets, with little corresponding increase in Timetable requirements for more trains. As such Neasden have a few more sets to play with and it's then easier to get a reliable fleet out for full service. Plus the sets released by the S Stock workings. Were the Hammersmith and Circle or Central fleets in a similar condition detiriation-wise then the nostalgia brigade wouldn't have quite such a compelling argument...

Sorry to be like a serial killer at a Mr Matey party, and burst another bubble, but...

I'm afraid the A-stock has had its fair share of shutting us down. Just a few weeks ago, the train that ended up at Northwood en-route to scrapping was a train that caused delays during an evening peak. That is just one (serious) example off the top of my head.



The ELL didn't use that many trains on a daily basis - and remember they were 4-car sets. For every 2 they returned, we only gained 1 Met-Main 8-car set.

Add to this that we have scrapped a few 4-car sets now.

The S-stock workings, whilst on a day-to-day basis they ease A-stock coverage, they are not at a point yet where they can happily take over. There are always a couple of A-stocks held in reserve in case the S-stock is not able to run - either due to problems with the train or lack of qualified train operators.

Add to all of this the fact that some minor failures are now occuring more frequently due to age, and these problems are taking up space in the workshops that would otherwise allow a train to get some more serious attention.

It is true that we are now running with 1 train less during the peak (48 now instead of 49 post-December). But unfortunately until more S-stocks enter service (as in more paths are covered) the 1 spare train is normally fairly quickly used up.

I don't mean to sound all doom and gloom. This weekend the 14 or 15 trains that were used on the service north of Harrow all performed relatively well, and without depot visits (as the line to Neasden was closed). Most made it into this morning's peak, with only 1 train suffering a problem that required the depot first thing.

whats been going wrong with the A stock have the motors packed up or something?

No not really, just the odd bit here and there. What you would expect with a 50 year old train which is having its maintenance run down.