Antje's D78 Stock Photo Project

I am due to go to London in the next few weeks - maybe as early as next Wednesday. Whilst there, would you like me to snap all the D stock I see just in case something happens, Gods Forbid, and you don't have the chance to get said unit into your collection?



Why not give it a try? Stranger things have happened with pure dumb luck and sheer audacity. In my younger days, I once rang up Northern Rail to request a certain Class 142 be allocated to a certain service from Hull. They did it simply because nobody had ever thought of trying that idea before

The very least LU can do is to say "No", but if you mention you are a Historian (which technically you are) they might try to accommodate you

I would require authorisation and safety briefing to do photos at the depot: I give priority to photos of the trains in a normal environment.

User contributions would make great backup plans in case the management decides there's enough S Stocks to sustain themselves. A reminder of the specifications are:

- Photos should be composed in a way that can be cropped to ratios between 2:3 and 16:9.
- There should be no blur, since detail is important.
- It should be in a RAW format since Adobe releases new versions of Camera RAW that improves post-processing. I still have the 450D, and when I first got it the Adobe Camera RAW at the time wasn't plausible: now it's a lot better.
- I am not fussy about whether is Nikon or Canon.

Just noticed that 7081 has the international no smoking symbol instead of the red disc:

i would also check some of the other early refurb units for this, 7074 7021 etc.

Thanks, but sadly I already have that one.

What I do have however is an updated list of vehicles to date (the meaning of colours remain the same). There are now less than fifty to go.


D78 Stock 7089 at Dagenham East by ??sity, on Flickr

I'll be really sad when the D78s are retired, they are reliable workhorses, great trains and will be much missed.

What do you mean by Double ender?

Not really - the cab is more expensive and takes up space which could be used by passengers, especially on a train like the D stock where the length has already been pushed to the minimum by reducing a 7-car train to 6 cars.

No point in having a cab if it's not needed, the small number of double-ended units were provided to give the flexibility required.

On later stocks the double-ended units were abolished altogether, and 92,95,96 and 09 stocks have no middle cabs at all, although the 92 stock does have slightly more DM-NDM units than NDM-NDM which means there are generally a very small handful of 92 stock trains running with cabs in the middle.

Single-ended units have existed almost as long as fixed-formation units. The first fixed formatoin units were, I believe, the 1935 stock. The first single-ended units, with UNDMs, were the R47 and 1949 stock. Also found on C, D, 1972 (3-car), 1973, and 1992 stock (which includes some "middle" units with no cabs at all). D and 1973 stock include some double enders for operating flexibility, and the 4car units of 1972 stock were also double ended for flexibility (so they could be coupled either way round to a 3car, however many times they had been round the Kennington loop).

Moreover, later in their working lives many units of A and 1967 effectively became single-ended as only one cab had all the latest upgrades installed. These could be identified by the absence of a red face on the redundant cab, and later by the absence of intercar safety barrier attachments on the live cab end (since it would never be in the middle of a train)

Most train couplings are "hermaphrodite" - any vehicle can couple to any other, either way round. However, several Underground lines (Bakerloo, District main, Jubilee, Victoria, W&C) have no opportunity to turn a train round in normal service, and so any given unit always faces the same way. (Central, Northern, Picadilly have loops, and SSL have triangles, so can reverse trains). D stock couplings are not hemaphrodite, a west end UNDM (or UDM on a double ender) cannot couple to another west end UNDM. This doesn't matter as they can't be turned rpound, and makes the design simpler. 1973 stock is the same, which was not a problem when the type was introduced but is now that the T4 loop exists.

It's been a good day at Stamford Brook, before "closing in" on 7017: however, Kew Gardens turned out to be risky due to the traffic patterns.


D78 Stock 7017 at Kew Gardens by ??sity, on Flickr


D78 Stock 7019 at Stamford Brook by ??sity, on Flickr


D78 Stock 7043 at Stamford Brook by ??sity, on Flickr


D78 Stock 7071 at Stamford Brook by ??sity, on Flickr


D78 Stock 7508 at Stamford Brook by ??sity, on Flickr

It looks like a copy of the metro to me!

Few new ones at West Ham and one at West Ken (and this time it didn't go bad):







To complete the single-siders: only 7010, 7039, 7054, 7064 and 7088 remain.

Some excellent images there antje.

In my POV, your creating an important photographic record of almost every vehicle bar the trailers before they go to either the scrapyard or reuse elsewhere.

From another thread


Antje appears to have got all of these. 7510 has some interesting stains around the front door, and is that a dent on the driver's side of 7065?