Stabling S7s at Wembley Pk

Yes that's exactly what is done, S7 passenger into Baker Street pfm2 - change drivers, empty to Harrow siding, empty to Wembley Park pfm6, reverse into sidings.

Well it would certainly be possible to have run the train in passenger service from Harrow to Wembley if the need had arisen (I'm guessing they normally run it empty to avoid the need to tip out at Wembley).

My understanding is that all the all the S stocks will have all the possible SSR destinations available for the LED indicators, etc.

An absolutely bonkers and short-sighted decision yet again with regards to these S stocks.

Well, a couple of mornings ago, when I passed through, there was an S8 in Baker street P4 claiming to be a Circle line train via (I think it was) Victoria!

If I recall several years ago Neasden and Baker St Met Line crews also covered Circle Line duties and also maybe H & C. Would that not be helpful and cost effective to reintrocuce now that there is a unifrom fleet of trains. Do the early morning Wembley Park starters run emptly to Baker St or do they run in service to Moorgate/Barking from Wembley Pk and Finchley Rd?

Which is why it's short-sighted. Edgware Road sidings are too short, resulting in a loss of one road after the new siding is complete. Farringdon sidings are too short, and are going altogether. A road lost at Uxbridge too.

Buy a train, and then spend millions upon millions on the rest of the railway to accommodate them. Untold signalling modifications (Edgware Road is a fantastic example, double the amount of signalling equipment as before, overlaid over the old, all so there are high and low speed overlaps, which will be superfluous when the C stocks are gone), immunisation, platform extensions, the list goes on. I remember the S stock as being labelled as having a "bespoke" internal design, well the whole train should have been bespoke, and chop off 12 inches from the end of each car. It's not like anyone really cared about losing seats anyway, that's quite evident.

I'd be interested to know if anyone has taken in to consideration the affect of shortening engineering hours every night so these trains can be shoehorned here there and everywhere, add to that the constant access problems because of trains stabled in platforms. When does it end? When they finally decide to spend the money and turn what's left of the Widened Lines into sidings and rebuild depots and sheds. Staggering amount of money, and we're led to believe this is cheaper than a shorter train.

At no point was doing all of this work "cheaper", indeed as crusty54 says, it is about "future-proofing". When these trains retire around 2050, there will almost certainly be more people using the system, so doing this work now and having it ready for when the loads are hugely higher is going to be better than having to supplement or replace the fleet halfway through their life.

What does seem - silly is the word I would choose - is that having decided to stable H&C/Circle S7s at Wembley Park, to have to use Met (rather than H&C/Circle) drivers to get them there. (Can it be any Met driver, or only those with special S7 training?)

Reading domh45's comment about 'future proofing' - yes, good idea, but a pity it wasn't taken to its logical conclusion by upgrading the whole of the SSL network to use S8s. Was this actually ever considered, or costed?

Probably the worst miss though was making the S8s slightly longer than 8 car A stock trains - sufficiently so to require a lot of work, but not enough to provide any great advantage...

Yeah, some of the platforms are physically impossible to lengthen without hugely disturbing those "up above" for example everywhere between Notting Hill Gate and Paddington, where already there is a huge amount of SDO. I think that to have made the H&C and Circle S8 wouldn't have been justified, but it is a shame that District can't get S8s, retaining S7s for the Wimblewares. But then again that opens up the issue of "Why not just have S8s for the Met/ District and S6s to directly replace the Cs, which was hotly debated earlier in the project, before the trains started to arrive

S7s only just fit into the extended platforms at Hammersmith.

Don't think they could get S8s into Edgware Road.

The line is only just below the surface. You would have to buy property above it to extend the platforms. Some of the most expensive areas in London.

Just not affordable.

If it's any consolation, we're struggling to get S7 mods commissioned because of S7 test trains running!

Regarding Wembley Park, it was already tight for an A stock and slightly too small for an S8. Their reuse for S7s does help, especially with the current shortages of depot roads.

Neasden night crews take S7's empty to and from Neasden depot to Baker Street. All met drivers have been re-trained in S7 movement to and from Wembley siddings. ;-)

A few things had changed since A Stocks stabled there, minor differences.

There would be little difference, just remembering to stop at the few S7 stop markers (Harrow siding) and one less M2 car.