Waterloo and City line History

No one is perfect Graham.

Are you sure about that?

(still faithfully showing passengers where to queue to be next to the doors line up - should 1940 stock ever return to the line!)

Hello, Graham.

I'm the author of the piece in question and I think you may be confusing a comment left on my site with the main body of my work. In my article I make no mention of rail layouts or when they were put in place; such details are not my area of expertise. 

I also proof read my posts many times before making them active and do my best to check for any spelling mistakes- if there are any, I am always happy for people to point them out so that I can correct them.   

I know what you mean about the Network South East logos being poorly hidden... I have some photos of them 'crossed out'! 

Many thanks to Tubeboy for the kind words and readership. 

@cabmirror/norbitonflyer - I have a soft spot for the W&C. Not only was I determined to transfer it (and some other bits of BR infrastructure used by LU) to LU in advance of privatisation - I was eager to save something from the wreck - but I was also a Director of the line for a few weeks. We had to form a new BR subsidiary (the Waterloo and City and Underground Extensions Railway) as the legal vehicle for the transfer, and then run it as an operating company for some days, for tax reasons. Amongst other entertainments, LU invited my lawyer colleague, Helen Bissell, who had been working with me on the transfer, to choose the line colour (LU were very sexist). She was offered a palette of the available colours and chose the present eau-de-nil shade because she had an evening dress of that colour. The transfer went anything but smoothly. In the first place, LU lawyers turned up the morning before the transfer with a sheaf (C600 pages) of additions to the transfer document, concerning indemnities that Railtrack would have to give them (RT being a party to the transfer for such things as parts of NX and Wimbledon). RT refused to sign on the spot, rightly wanting time to read them. LU tried bullying tactics and said there was insufficient time for the indemnities to be read by RT's lawyers. RT replied that in that case, they would shut the District Line whilst they did. LU were astonished and backed off. We then faced the complication that we BR directors had to remain in office at the moment of transfer, so that LU could replace us immediately afterwards. That led to the problem that we in BR were, albeit only for a second or two, responsible for some LU operations, and we needed to be indemnified ourselves in case an accident occurred at that instant. This rather taxed the lawyers' drafting skills, and we collectively did consider suspending the District and ELL for 5 minutes either side of the transfer time (the Drain didn't run that close to midnight) just to avoid any mishaps. Luckily, common sense prevailed and the transfer went ahead smoothly.

pitdiver - your hair would stand on end at the daily machinations we faced over the four year privatisation process (mine began to disappear instead...) - the tax dodges approved - no, encouraged - by the Treasury, the bizarre negotiating tactics of the buyers, the shoddy legal advice, and the out and out criminality (eg the scam that brought down the LTS management buyout), not to mention the daily drudge of having to sign a heap of documents that we estimated would have stood 30 000 ft high... The W&C was a nice lollipop in an otherwise dismal business! (There was also the business with Garter King of Arms and Dunblane Herald but that's not relevant to the Drain).

BTW - I can record now that the dust has settled from everything, that my prime reason for transferring the W&C was to avoid having a Trojan horse of a privatised tube operation - when selling the idea to the Board, I kept that quiet, of course.

@norbiton flyer - that took place well before privatisation hit, and no one in Whitehall had that much feel for history ( as you gather, I'd bailed out of Marsham Towers by then...)

Still a good read, tho'!

A pound I think?

Graham answered this I think - not wanting to set a precedent by having a privatised Tube Line. I assume privatisation was used as an opportunity to tidy a few anomalies up, but I cannot imagine that the Drain would be an attractive part of any franchise anyway. (Especially as before Oyster it was essentially open-access at each end)

@a729/norbitonflyer - as I recall, it was £50, being the nominal consideration for the shares in the company. No valuation was put on the assets.