Turn that light out!

Sounds like a good idea to me. Why not just use the emergency lights in the open in daylight? It's not hard... just walk over to the offside and trip/set the lights...

Seems very wasteful,the tubes and MA brushes must wear out quicker.It seems pointless having all lights blazing on a bright sunny day.

On the Northern in the 60s, coming into East Finchley during daylight, the lights always went off the moment the guard (on the last car) came out of the tunnel. But they didn't bother much on the Circle, which in those days went in and out of tunnel frequently.

By the time I was a guard the instruction had been rescinded, and as far as im aware was rescinded when the Central had guards before 1990.

According to a document I have found dating back to 1993, lighting of trains on the Central is summed up like this:

Car lighting must be switched on, during dull or inclement weather and hours of darkness and as follows at all times of the day -

When passing through the flyunder at North Acton and under bridge ES8 at White City.

Between White City and Leyton and between Leytonstone and Newbury Park.

When passing through Whipps Cross and Grange Hill tunels.

Guards may use their discretion and switch on or retain the lighting, if, in their opinion this is necessary for the convenience of passengers.

When a train is detrained under any overbridge or flyover the lighting must be switched on if there is a possiblity of passengers suffering inconvenience. Car lighting must always be switched off when trains are stabled.

Why are all trains stabled with their lights on?

Interesting - you would think that TFL would want to be seen as "green", and issue a directive that all interior lights should be off when stabled. As was mentioned earlier in the thread, there used to be a directive about this.

Hmm, I thought that cab lights stayed on when the control [RKL] was removed? They do at least on 9x ts...

Hmmm, most peculiar... should have illumini paint applied to the steps, or mini lights!

The cab light will go off when the control key (which isn't the RKL key BTW ;D ;D) is removed if the saloon lights are switched off - but it will remain on if the saloon lights are on.

Another reason for leaving the saloon lights on when stabling is that invariably the cleaners, train techs, etc will usually board the train very soon after it's stabled - so it's pointless turning them off only to have them turned on again almost straight away.

And vandals hate working in lit up areas - turning the saloon lights off would make it more difficult to catch them on CCTV etc.

Don't forget on more modern stocks, the control and reverser barrels are combined, so only the RKL 220 is required to open up. This setup eliminates said problem, but does create others.

In most locations lights are left on as an anti-graffiti measure, though I do understand the sentiment - particularly in these days of considering the 'carbon footprint' thing.

Only time I kill the lights is when stabling on a shed road - no current rails, the main lights will go out anyway but the emergency lights then drain the batteries.

You do ocassionally see a train with the saloon lights off, usually when it has come from a depot in daylight and the driver has forgotten to turn them on ! (In a D stcok cab, when the lights are off an indication light is illuminated in the cab.)

So far all stocks post D stock have this feature, so I would expect it to continue anyway