please empty your brain below

I just knew today's blog post would be on this subject!

I managed a return trip to Amersham yesterday on the 'A' stock and wondered if any of the assembled throng might be you (clearly not). I was quite amazed at the level of interest; at Amersham about 150 people got off, the vast majority to await the return journey to London some 20 minutes later. Photographers of all shapes and sizes (and yes, there were even some women) were stood at the end of most platforms and many trains we met en route whistled an acknowledgement.

My father drove them for over 20 years from Rickmansworth depot and is coming down on Saturday to join the farewell tour. Today was my farewell though. Goodbye 'A' stock and thanks for half a century of sterling service. Another part of my childhood heads off to the scrapyard...
I was on that train too - Aldgate to Wembley Park: the dash on the non-stop section after Finchley Road never seems as fast on the new trains.

Time moves on, but I can't help thinking that the new trains (especially S stock and the new Overground ones) are more designed to cram people in, rather than make them attractive places to be. (Try looking out of the window when sitting in thge lengthways shelves (I think they're supposed to be seats) Perhaps the powers that be have realisded that we are captive commuters, and they don't need to bother to be nice any more.
Thanks DG... I catch whatever comes first between Moorgate and Farringdon daily, and can't remember the last time I was on a A stock. For a 4-minute journey the S stocks are great occasionally I jump on at the back of the train and walk up to the front during those 4 minutes. But vale another piece of tube history.
So another line that now has less comfortable trains. (The first to change to uncomfortable seats/more standing room was the North London line now part of the Overground network.)
I am sure the new trains are more efficient at cramming people in after events at Wembley. Not so comfortable for normal commuters or people who would like to look at Metroland out of the window. What would John Betjeman think?
There are fewer seats on the Metropolitan line (and London Overground), so fewer people get the comfort of a seat. However, for all those people crammed in at rush hour who mostly wouldn't have had a seat anyway, they are far more comfortable.

The same applies with Southeastern's newer/older stock, with the newer trains replacing the row of seats either side of the doors with a larger standing area that is MUCH more pleasant to stand in. Well worth the sacrificed number of seats.

As much as I'd love our transport to be able to offer every commuter a seat, that is never going to happen. At least now we aren't crammed in like sardines to the same extent.
Yeah it's sad to see those luggage racks go, and those highly sprung and very bouncy seats. But times move on. They had a good life and I'd argue that in recent years especially, they never looked as old as 50.

But then if I'd turned up in London afresh, knowing nothing about tube trains, I'd probably never guess that the Central Line trains are 20 years old. They still look some of the most modern in the fleet to me!
A special fondness for these trains, as of course they were part of the charm of the East London Line in its previous life. Goodbye and thanks.
They were cozy, those trains. I loved to sit just behind the driver's cabin, and enjoy the very suburban comfort and intimacy. There's nowhere to hide on the new trains, they are a brutally public space. And my back couldn't bear a daily trip to Amersham in those seats.
Sad, sad day; thanks for recording it DG. Those trains emanated comfort and safety; they were a haven before and after the office. So glad I no longer commute, as I couldn't have stood the pain of the new uncomfy seats for long. The solid backs of the old seats could be leaned against as well, making it much less distressing when I had to stand. Wheelchair accessible the new trains may be, but they're far less accessible for people like me who depend on plentiful and well sprung seats to travel.
Easy to forget that, when the A stock was first introduced, the commuters of Metro-land were in uproar at what they saw as a disgraceful erosion of standards, with lovely old-fashioned compartment stock trains shamelessly scrapped in favour of trains with less comfortable seats, fewer amenities, zero character and (initially) dreadful reliability.

Funny how things come around, isn't it?

Personally I think the S stock is the first really good, and revolutionary in all the right ways, train the Underground has purchased since the 1992 stock. (Certainly it can't compare to the catastrophe that was the 2009 stock, which was twenty years out of date before the first one was even delivered. Ah well, 'safe and proven technology' is what privatisation gets you.) And let's not forget that it's keeping British train manufacturing alive single-handedly, at least until the government bows to the only politically palatable outcome and hands Derby Crossrail on a plate...
The problem with the Metropolitan line is that it has totally different sections and uses, served by the same rolling stock.

As you wouldn't run a suburban or metro train on the London to Edinburgh service, you wouldn't run a long distance carriage or a restaurant car on a sub-surface section in Central London.

The S stock is the case when one use must prevail, and this is the metro usage.
I tend to get the Met most days. I get on it for one stop between Barbican and Moorgate!

But not just the Met that has these problems. I was on a Southern train once from Brighton. It was pretty busy before it arrived at Gatwick Airport but once there it filled up quickly.

There were lots of complaints about the lack of luggage racks. I wanted to point out (but didn't) that most of the time the train was used for a a heavily used commuter service that just happened to pop via an airport.

(I could see their argument, but to be frank, that's why the Gatwick Express exists. Maybe if it, and the Heathrow Express, were just standard trains instead of "premium services" normal commuter services would have less stress on them.)
Don't consider the Met fully upgraded, because it isn't close to being so. The reduction in journey time and increase in speed will come when the new signalling is in. With some admittedly slightly creative accounting that will increase the number of seats available during the peaks to Disgusted of Amersham.

'09 and S stocks are the same train under the bonnet, the only thing that really went wrong with '09 was the way staff had to get used to sensitive edge activations - S would have had those problems instead had it been first.

Finally, the build quality on both is shocking. It's no wonder Bombardier relies on "patriotic" MPs banging the drum - no customer in their right mind would purchase a Bombardier train. Also interesting concept of patriotism, with all the parts being made in Eastern Europe and all the profits going to the Canadian parent company.
Even as a relatively occasional visitor to London (and a rare user of the Met) I've always liked the A Stock, not least for the well-documented quirks such as the irregular door arrangements and umbrella hooks, and the fact that the A is still (and looks likely to remain) the fastest 4th-rail train in history. The association with Betjemen and fact that the Met feels like a proper railway network with big trains may have something to do with this too. That said, I generally preferred the classic outside design to the inside, particularly when the age and technology of the carriages made itself apparent in cold weather and going high-speed over points.

The S Stock may well turn out to be a worthy replacement, as the exterior design manages to be at least somewhat distinctive and looks as if it will age well.
@Chris: 'Under the bonnet' isn't the bit the passenger notices. There is surely no excuse for building the 2009 stock without inter-car gangways when it was almost contemporary with the class 378s and the S stock followed not far behind. There was even a rejected design for the Jubilee line stock of a decade earlier which featured the things! It now looks as if the first walk-through tube train won't arrive until 'Deep Tube' gets funded.

In addition to that, the S stock found a spatial solution to the problem of the floor of the train being higher than the platform (hence their distinctive outline). The 2009 stock didn't even try, and now all the Victoria line platforms have to have those stupid humps installed instead.

And whatever happened to giving Tube trains high windows, like on the 1992 stock? The 1996 stock originally didn't feature them because it was (at an early stage) planned for inter-operation with the still very new 1983 stock, and high windows were felt to be jarring. Then the 1995 stock was basically a follow-on order to the 1996 design (confusingly). The 2009 stock had no such excuses. Admittedly there's not so much call for them on a line entirely in tunnel, but when the width of the existing low windows was shrunk at the same time, it feels as if tube train design has never been closer to the City & South London's infamous 'padded cells'.

A more minor irritation with the 2009 stock is that awful screech they use on the door alarms. I was so relieved when they didn't copy that for the S stock, and used much less piercing tones instead.
The A Stock was a brilliant piece of modern design when you consider what BR was buying then. I miss my occasional journeys on the 'fast trains' before their refurbishment, when they were incredibly bouncy, did they go faster then?

The S Stock has some clever design, the aircon was nice during hot spells, but I find it quite hard to stand in them between Baker St and Finchley Rd, as they jerk around. Derby's build quality is pretty poor as well.

@swirlything
The 1992 windows are far too large, the train is like a greenhouse in the open, and because the window comes so far down, it feels like you're sitting on the floor in them, I find the 95/96 much nicer. The 2009 stock is so so, apart from its slightly larger dimensions, which when standing by the door you really notice.
I asked over at IanVisits, but the comments about build quality above make it more relevant here: how long is the S stock projected to remain in service? Will it reach 52 years?
Despite people's tendency to carp about the Underground, I still think it's remarkable how much it's improved in my lifetime. Not just new trains, but completely new stations, more visible staff and entirely new lines. The old Broad Street/Richmond line was once almost derelict and threatened with closure but now provides a frequent and reliable service 'to all parts'. Not long ago there was no such thing as the DLR, the Jubilee Line extension, or Thameslink, let alone Crossrail to come. Compared with other UK cities, we sometimes don't appreciate how lucky we are.
@ Acton Man - while I completely understand the point you make about improvement it could reasonably be argued that all the schemes you listed were a long time coming. The Underground was underfunded or else given unpredictable funding which meant service quality declined to a serious extent. The last 10-12 years has seen substantial efforts made to redress the balance and get sustained investment in place to improve boring things like track, power supplies and signalling. We are now getting the new trains but we must also ensure the remaining likes the Picc and Bakerloo are also upgraded before their service quality collapses due to aged assets.

Things like the Overground and DLR are good investments but after the new SLL opens in December there is no strategy for further development of either railways. The Standard is today reporting that Boris's demands for more control over suburban railways may have backfired. I'd have expected it if Ken was Mayor but it is a shocking indictment of the Cameron / Boris clash that government is not willing to work effectively with a Tory Mayor.

We now face a huge problem of there being at least a 8 year gap in scheme planning which means that London faces a probable 20 year gap before we see the next major improvements after Thameslink and Crossrail open in 6 years. Given the economy might have improved by then and we face continued population growth London will continue to need sustained investment in the Tube *and* in adding extra capacity and new lines.
As much as I loved the A Stocks, remember that that all stunk of piss, and didn't we all hate it when someone came to sit in our little area.










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