Metropolitan Line
 

Whiskers wrote:
On 2006-05-04, John in Surrey wrote:
Hi folks
Is it me or are the trains slow on this line?

Indeed they are John. 'A' stock trains have a maximum speed of around
50mph as they are now very old dears - the oldest are 45 years of age.
As an example, it takes ten minutes longer now to travel from Watford
to Baker Street than it did when I was a kid in the early 1980s.

When the 'S' stock is introduced on the met (in 2010?) expect a big
drop in journey times as the trains will have a maximum speed of 70mph.

THC

Metropolitan Line
 

Metropolitan Line
 

Surely it's the state of the track and/or signal overlap lengths which
restrict the speed of A Stocks? The S Stock may be capable of faster
speed, what they won't admit is the likelihood of it having 20-30% less
seats. Time to bring back straphangers perhaps?

Metropolitan Line
 

In reply to news post, which wrote on Wed, 10 May
2006 -
Surely it's the state of the track and/or signal overlap lengths which
restrict the speed of A Stocks? The S Stock may be capable of faster
speed, what they won't admit is the likelihood of it having 20-30% less
seats. Time to bring back straphangers perhaps?

The A stock is restricted to I believe 50mph owing to cracks in the
bogies.

The Chiltern services which share part of the track go faster. In the
past I am sure I saw sped signs for 70, but perhaps it is 60 now.

The potentially reduced seating of the S stock is a problem, as I
believe is the type of seat, it can be a long journey out to Amersham /
Chesham
--
Matthew P Jones - www.amersham.org.uk
My view of the Metropolitan Line www.metroland.org.uk - actually I like it
Don't reply to it will not be read
You can reply to knap AT Nildram dot co dot uk

Metropolitan Line
 

Matthew P Jones wrote:
The A stock is restricted to I believe 50mph owing to cracks in the
bogies.

The Chiltern services which share part of the track go faster. In the
past I am sure I saw sped signs for 70, but perhaps it is 60 now.

It's 50 for A stock, 60 for 165s and 168s. The only section posted at
70 is north of Amersham.


The potentially reduced seating of the S stock is a problem, as I
believe is the type of seat, it can be a long journey out to Amersham /
Chesham

At the moment no one seems to know what type of seating will be used in
the S stock for the long runs out to Amersham - current thinking is
that there will be a hybrid seating arrangement to cater for both types
of usage patterns.

Metropolitan Line
 

In reply to news post, which TheOneKEA wrote on
Wed, 10 May 2006 -
Matthew P Jones wrote:
The A stock is restricted to I believe 50mph owing to cracks in the
bogies.

The Chiltern services which share part of the track go faster. In the
past I am sure I saw sped signs for 70, but perhaps it is 60 now.

It's 50 for A stock, 60 for 165s and 168s. The only section posted at
70 is north of Amersham.


The potentially reduced seating of the S stock is a problem, as I
believe is the type of seat, it can be a long journey out to Amersham /
Chesham

At the moment no one seems to know what type of seating will be used in
the S stock for the long runs out to Amersham - current thinking is
that there will be a hybrid seating arrangement to cater for both types
of usage patterns.


Have not looked out of the window recently for speed signs, I am pretty
sure years ago there was 70 on the Met

With regards seating, I also heard the hybrid idea, but no one seems to
know. If they don't get it right, I think many people will be unhappy.
When the designed the A stock, they built prototypes to try out new
ideas. The coaches before A stock were compartments and the A stock was
a kind of compromise between a normal underground carriage and a
compartment stock coach.


--
Matthew P Jones - www.amersham.org.uk
My view of the Metropolitan Line www.metroland.org.uk - actually I like it
Don't reply to it will not be read
You can reply to knap AT Nildram dot co dot uk

Metropolitan Line
 

In article ,
(Matthew P Jones) wrote:

When the designed the A stock, they built prototypes to try out new
ideas. The coaches before A stock were compartments and the A stock
was a kind of compromise between a normal underground carriage and a
compartment stock coach.

Not exactly. They converted parts of compartment stock vehicles for
trials but they weren't very close to the eventual A stock design I
don't think.

Why "S" for the new stock? The last surface` stock was "D".

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Metropolitan Line
 

On Sun, 14 May 2006, Colin Rosenstiel wrote:

In article ,
(Matthew P Jones) wrote:

When the designed the A stock, they built prototypes to try out new
ideas. The coaches before A stock were compartments and the A stock
was a kind of compromise between a normal underground carriage and a
compartment stock coach.

Not exactly. They converted parts of compartment stock vehicles for
trials but they weren't very close to the eventual A stock design I
don't think.

Why "S" for the new stock? The last surface` stock was "D".

Wasn't it D because it was for the District line, like the C is for the
Circle and A is, er, the Amersham service (and not, sadly, the 'Ammersmith
and City)? In which case S might be because it it's Shared by all the
Subsurface lines.

tom

--
I really don't know what any of this **** means, but it looks
impressive. -- zerolives, on YVFC

Metropolitan Line
 

In article ,
(Tom Anderson) wrote:

On Sun, 14 May 2006, Colin Rosenstiel wrote:

In article ,
(Matthew P Jones) wrote:

When the designed the A stock, they built prototypes to try out new
ideas. The coaches before A stock were compartments and the A stock
was a kind of compromise between a normal underground carriage and
a compartment stock coach.

Not exactly. They converted parts of compartment stock vehicles for
trials but they weren't very close to the eventual A stock design I
don't think.

Why "S" for the new stock? The last surface` stock was "D".

Wasn't it D because it was for the District line, like the C is for
the Circle and A is, er, the Amersham service (and not, sadly, the
'Ammersmith and City)? In which case S might be because it it's
Shared by all the Subsurface lines.

They started the letter series again at A for the Met in 1960 but
skipped B, so they could us C for Circle I suppose. D just followed so
the fact that is also matched District was of little note.

Before then they had gone from A to R plus T from the start of
electrification in 1903.

I don't understand why the new stock isn't E.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Metropolitan Line
 

On Sun, 14 May 2006 19:00 +0100 (BST), Colin Rosenstiel wrote:

When the designed the A stock, they built prototypes to try out new
ideas. The coaches before A stock were compartments and the A stock
was a kind of compromise between a normal underground carriage and a
compartment stock coach.

Not exactly. They converted parts of compartment stock vehicles for
trials but they weren't very close to the eventual A stock design I
don't think.

Why "S" for the new stock? The last surface` stock was "D".

I don't think it's supposed to be an alphabetical progression -
there's no B Stock. I've always thought (someone correct me if I'm
wrong) that A is for Amersham, C is for Circle, and D is for District.

The new stock will be common to the whole subsurface network - hence S
Stock.

Returning to the topic of interiors, there are good reasons why Met
trains have 60 seats per carriage while Circle trains have 32 (in
carriages of the same length) - Circle trains are less frequent and
more crowded, and mostly used only for short journeys, while the
average journey length on the Met is a *lot* longer. To me it seems
like madness that the new stock might all be fitted with a common
"compromise" interior that suits neither line well. From my
(admittedly armchair) point of view, it would be much better to
semi-permanently fit the stock for each line with an interior similar
to the current ones (or at least using them as a starting point). This
would require the stock to be long-term allocated to a particular
line, but I don't see why that would be a big problem, with the siting
of depots already suited to this arrangement. Short-term transfers of
stock between lines would still be possible - it would just mean the
odd train running around with an unsuited interior (rather than every
train on the Met/Circle). Long-term transfers would require an
interior refit, however.