New LU trains

Is the Bakerloo having new trains too, since they both have (i think) 1972 stock? I know the Piccadilly refurbished theirs for making luggage easier to lug on and off for Heathrow passengers.

Not exactly. The 1973 stock was designed with the spaces by the doors for luggage and introduced for the opening of Heathrow Central.

As opposed to the A-stock which is already mostly 45 years old and the replacement stock isn't even being built yet.

Plus you should take into account the complex equations of

Planned Date + 10 years x Lack of money/motivation/profit the infraco will make = Your guess is as good as mine

Couldn't they just suspend the circle line and transfer the spare c stock to the uxbridge services ??(not amersham - that would be like doing waterloo-paris on a sprinter!)

By the time the new stock is on the horizon, many A-stocks will be incapable of speeds over 40mph, so a new timetable will be made anyway. Rumours of this are already being banded around - the life of the stock will have to be preserved as much as possible.

A simple solution to this would be to take them back out of the city off-peak. They were never designed for such stop-start treatment.

As for Amersham punters. The builders of the new stock are not going to give the kind of luxuries (?) the A-stock has. The aim is one-for-all stock for the SSLs. Therefore, what's good enough for the Circle will be good enough for Amersham services.

In all the years I've posted to forums, I have emphasised the following statement, and within the first 2 weeks of me being here I will emphasise it again. The Circle Line will not be scrapped in many of our working lives. There may be changes - sooner rather than later - but to the travelling public these changes will hardly be noticed.

What do LU do with the old trains after they introduce new ones? Do they go to scrap, or get sold? SWT are (apparantly) giving away all their slam door stock which the SRA have told them to replace. You can have them as long as you tranport them home yourself. I tried to pursude my parents to put a 4 cars in the back garden, but no luck!

I reckon they should preserve them on the ongar line when they're finished with.

A little snippet of info I have got from a relative who is with the Great Eastern. Rumour has it over there that TFL is looking into the possibility of buying the 315 units from them or Bombardier as a 20 year stopgap for the "A" stock as finance for the new SSL stock seems to be dodgy at present. I find that fascinating and the vision of a 315 sitting at Baker or Aldgate keeps flitting through my mind.

Personally I think they would suit the Amersham/Watford line commuters to a tee. I wonder if it IS feasable?

If it's true, then Tfl need some lessons in mathematics amongst other things. The 315s themselves are no spring chickens.

They are already around 25 years old, and being of a later flimsy build of train, more prone to reliability problems.

I cannot see them lasting until their 40th birthday. I travel regularly on their "cousins" the Class 313s, and let's just say that whilst they do still work, there are occasions when you wonder if they will make it to where you are going.

The 315s will need a full mid-life makeover to ensure they are worth whatever Tfl are paying. Plus the alterations to traction equipment. Makes me wonder if it woulnd't be cheaper to pay a bit extra and hurry the order of brand new trains.

As for north of Moor Park. Of course Tfl will continue to serve this area. There's a lot of money to be had there. But in realistic terms (and this is something they have got almost right) why should that part of London have "more luxury" (I use the term very losely). I am sure any sensible person living in that area would favour reliability over 2+2 seating. Having fully compatible stock on the SSLs will mean easier use of stock.

I'm not saying that the Bucks commuters deserve 'more luxury', I'm simply stating that Bucks commuters are not likely to ride trains that lack transverse seating. If the interior of the SSL stock ends up looking like C stock, for maximum cattle haulage, then the longer-distance folks aren't going to be too happy.

Is there no chance that a subset of the SSL stock could be fitted with different seating patterns? Since the SSL stock will all be a uniform gauge, it's not like they will be confined to the Met...

As I mentioned in my post in the "Train Motors" thread, it is not at all impossible that Bombardier will offer the new SSL stock with a modular interior furniture arrangement. This means that seating arrangements and seats can be changed relatively easy (half a day with a spanner and torx key).

Thus, it is not impossible that the stock allocated for the Met line could have a slightly different seating pattern, perhaps with a seating group or two removed to give a bike/pram/wheelchair bay, but with the same standard seats as the rest of the fleet.

Of course, this is all speculation from my side, but Bombardier have been very interested in vehicles with flexible interiors for quite some time now. The IC2/X31/X32 family of EMU:s used for regional services between southern Sweden and Denmark, the X5x family of regional EMU:s and the A32 trams for Stockholm are but a few examples of this concept.

One of the main benefits to come from the new stock, will be "one train fits all." There have been numerous occasions where, had it not been for the differences in stock, simple cancellations or incidents would not have occured / been cleared quicker.

These Bucks people and the opinions they have on how to run a railway have figured far too long. This stock, the Chesham shuttle, service patterns (you can't have all-stations Amersham services ) to think of just a few.

Had the rest of the network we serve had the influence they appear to have, the map would look very different.

Surely improved reliability and journey time must offset the direction in which you sit. Or maybe they like their current seating as it offers some of the less desirable punters a nice little compartment to smoke/graffiti in. Shove the seats sideways and you are more exposed to the car as a whole.

If we go backwards after ordering the stock, and have "dedicated" units, the whole point will have been lost. And no, even if it only takes half a day to convert them one way or the other, I cannot see that being carried out. It's not practical.

Not to mention the enormous savings and simplifications possible in maintenance procedures, spare parts sourcing, the possibilities of transferring stock between lines and depots to cover temporary variations in demand, staff training, the list goes on and on...




I'm not so sure about that, actually. Now, I am no expert on LU rolling stock allocation and maintenance procedures, but the various fleets must be allocated to a few home depots on their respective lines, mustn't they? After all, it makes no real sense to drive a train across the whole of London just to get it to a maintenance point or suitable starting location for the service pattern. Thus, units on one line would tend to be stuck on that line for practical reasons, except in exceptional circumstances.

I do not see how this automatically precludes swapping stock from one line with the stock from another line in case of a service disruption or whatever, thus forcing the Amersham clientele to either go with a circle line-configured train with little seating or wait for the next train.

Of course, this swapping around does present a series of problems on it's own -how to get the train in question back in it's planned diagram, what happens with distance-based maintenance acitvities etc etc, so it might not be the best idea in actual practice, but I'd certainly say that (at least from my perspective) it is doable. After all, it is only the interior arrangements that are different -everything else, operationally and technically, is the same. It's just the SLF pods that have been altered.

/Igelkotten

The problem is, LUL (or rather the privatised companies running it) are saying they're going to order a generic sub-surface stock, which will be in use on all sub-surface lines, not just the Met.

So although the train formations will be different in the number of cars each train has, the seat layout will be generic on all lines.

The idea behind it is to allow more room for disabled access, buggies etc, while also allowing more room for those people who have to stand. I know it won't be a popular option, but you'll get used to it after a while... Incidentally, I wouldn't worry about it for the moment - the new trains are still a long way off!! I'll be almost ready to retire by the time they're introduced!