"Martin Petrov" wrote in message

London Reconnections with one post in the last 3 weeks (and that was
on the cable car - yawn!), Mind The Gap going down the loo, and
scarcely a thread of note on here in weeks - there must be something
interesting happening.

To stir some debate, any updates on the following?

Here's another rumour/suggestion:
The May edition of LURS Underground News has a letter from a regular
correspondent, now based in Tasmania (!) reporting a proposal to divert
new S stock deliveries over the next year from the Met to the H&C and
District to replace C stock earlier than planned. There would be several
advantages:

- Olympic venue stations (eg West Ham, Southfields) would benefit from
the higher capacity, air-conditioned comfort of S7 vs tired C6 trains
- Amersham commuters would get to keep their higher seating capacity A8
trains for a year or so longer
- More Londoners would get to travel on the new air-conditioned, higher
capacity S stock trains in the run-up to the 2012 mayoral election. No C
stock user is likely to complain about the switch, unlike users of the
1967 and A stock trains, who see their new trains as mixed blessings.

This would probably be achieved by temporarily removing one car from new
production S8 trains, so these early S8-1 stock trains would have some
transverse seating, unlike the planned eventual S7 stock trains intended
for the inner city routes. The editor, Brian Hardy, comments that the
early users of S8-1 stock trains with transverse seats may not be best
pleased when these are later replaced by all-longitudinal seating S7
trains.

If this is confirmed, C stock trains will start being scrapped while
much older A stock trains remain in front-line service.