Inside story: London Underground

London Underground is the rapid transit system for London and the surrounding areas.  Owned by Transport For London (Once all the competing companies were merged!) it  first opened in 1863 using steam trains running in Cut and Cover tunnels between Paddington and Farringdon. The network now uses a mixture of Cut and Cover and Deep Level tunnels with Electric Trains. There is now 11 lines with 270 stations. I will go into more detail about lines and stations nearer to the end of this post.

Map:

Up Until 1931 London’s Underground map was just placed on top of a map of London, showing the exact place of the Line. This would become very unclear and wouldn’t properly show stations. In 1931 that map changed when the underground company adopted Harry Beck's variation of the tube map using smooth curves and lines that went one of 8 directions. Both forms of map are shown below;

Pre 1931 Map of London Underground

The Harry Beck Map.

Tickets:

Ticketing on the Underground for regular users is done with a smart card called Oyster. This card makes it easy just to tap on the reader and let the computer system deduct the right ticket fare. Oyster is also valid on National Rail, London Buses, Tramlink and the Emirates Airline (Cable Car) within the London Area. Ticket prices are based on which zones you travel to and from, These are in the background of the tube map. Paper tickets are also available to purchase for single, return or day travel.  Tickets and Oyster Cards Look like this.

Oyster Card

Paper Tickets 

Tube Lines:

Northern line:

The Northern Line is a North south Line and has the Colour Black on the Tube Map. With 3 Branches in the North (Edgware, High Barnet and Mill Hill East) 2 routes through Central London (Via Bank and Via Charing Cross) it is Fairly Unusual. There is also a reversing siding at Kennington meaning that all trains don’t have to continue to Morden which is the most southerly station on the whole London Underground network. The Northern line is built in Deep Level tunnel which first dates back to 1890 being the City & South London Railway between Stockwell and King William St (Now Closed.) The Northern line is now the second busiest tube line on the London Underground network. The Northern Line uses 1995 Stock trains as shown in the picture below:

Northern Line Map

Northern Line 1995 Stock Trains 

Waterloo & City Line:

The Waterloo & City line has only got 2 stations at Waterloo and at Bank. The Waterloo and city line was built in 1898 and is 1.47 miles long. The Waterloo and City line is the only line not to operate on a sunday and Public holidays. The line was owned by British rail as a part of the Network SouthEast area until 1994 when it was transferred to TFL. Due to no connections to ground level therefore trains have to be craned down a hole to Waterloo depot. The Waterloo & City line uses 4 carriage 1992 stock trains and is Turquoise on the Tube map. The Waterloo & City line is a Deep Level tunnel.

Lifting 1992 Stock into Waterloo Depot 

1992 Stock at Waterloo Station 

Piccadilly Line:

The Piccadilly Line runs from Cockfosters in North East London to Heathrow in South West London and Uxbridge in North East London. The opening of the Piccadilly line was in 1906 and is now the 4th busiest line on the network. The Piccadilly line is built of Deep level tube tunnels and uses 1973 stock which provide extra baggage space by the doorways, The tube stock is due to be replaced in 2020 with new trains. The Line is one of the most important on the network serving Heathrow Airport and St Pancras International. The lines colour on the Tube map is Dark Blue.  

Piccadilly Line Map

Piccadilly Line 1973 stock at Hounslow Central. 

Jubilee Line:

The Jubilee line runs from Stratford in East London to Stanmore in North London via Waterloo. The line is the 3rd busiest on the network and serves the Financial district of Canary wharf and Westminster. The line first opened in 1976 to Charing Cross, Taking over the Stanmore Branch from the Bakerloo line from Baker St. The Jubilee was then extended to Stratford from Green Park in 1999. The tunnels are built at Deep Level. The extension has got some nice new features such as the platform edge doors. The Jubilee line uses 1996 Stock trains and is coloured Grey/ Silver on the Tube Map.

Map of the Jubilee Line

Jubilee line 1996 stock 

Victoria Line:

The Victoria line runs from South London in Brixton to the North East at Seven Sisters / Walthamstow Central. The line is entirely underground in Deep level tunnels and has been automatically operated since opening in 1968. The line is the sixth busiest on the network and has been built for ease of access with cross platform interchange for many of the changes. The line uses 2009 stock trains and is Light Blue on the Tube Map.

Victoria Line Map 

2009 Stock Victoria Line Train. 

Bakerloo Line:

The Bakerloo line runs from Elephant & Castle in South London to Harrow & Wealdstone in North West London. The name came about because the line serves Waterloo and Baker St. After Queens Park the line shares the tracks with the Watford DC Lines and runs parallel with the West Coast Main Line. The Bakerloo Line opened in 1906 and ran until 1976 to Stanmore ( Serving Stanmore from 40 years before it was transferred to the Jubilee Line.) The Bakerloo line is the 9th Busiest line on the network and uses 1972 stock trains. The Bakerloo is coloured Brown on the Tube Map.

Map of the Bakerloo Line 

Bakerloo Line 1972 Stock. 

Central Line:

The Central Line runs from Epping in East London to Ealing Broadway and West Ruislip in West and North West London. The line opened in 1900 as the Central London Railway. During the second World War some of the central lines deep level tunnels were put to use as aircraft parts factories. The train stock that is used is 1992 stock which is automatically operated. The colour of the line on the tube map is Red.

Central Line Map

1992 Stock train on the Central Line

Circle, District and Hammersmith & City Line:

These Lines are all sub surface lines built with a cut and Cover method of tunneling. The lines run from Ealing Broadway, Richmond, Hammersmith and Wimbledon in West London to Barking and Upminster in East London. Having Opened in sections between 1863 and 1884 these lines are the 5th busiest on the network. The lines use a mixture of D, C and S Stock trains. The Circle Line is coloured Yellow on the Tube Map.  The District Line is Coloured Green on the Tube Map. The Hammersmith & City Line is Coloured Pink on the Tube Map.

S Stock Train

Metropolitan Line:

The Metropolitan Line runs from Aldgate in Central London to Uxbridge, Watford and Amersham. The line dates back to 1863 and is the 10th busiest line on the Underground. The line is coloured Magenta on the Tube Map and uses S stock trains.

Eversholt Rail’s proactive approach to Train refurbishment (321448).

Train Leasing company Eversholt Rail have refurbished 321448 as a platform for possibilities unit to showcase what can be done to extend the life of the Class 321’s currently operated by Greater Anglia, London Midland, First Capital Connect and Northern Rail. The trail unit (321448) will be put into service with Greater Anglia in December 2013 with two types of trial seating. The 3 + 2 Metro style seating in two of the carriages and a 2 + 2 Suburban style seating in the other two carriages.

2+2 Style Seating 

3+2 Style Seating

Other new features on the refurbished Class 321 are as follows;

• New Saloon and Cab Air Conditioning
• New Saloon Heating
• Suburban and Metro Seating
• New First Class Area with Power operated doors, Leather seats and Power sockets.
• Toilet Refurbishment.  
• Wheelchair Accessible Toilet
• LED Lighting
• New bigger Windows

First Class Section 

321448 computer generated image

With all of the franchise changes at the moment, companies are not interested in investing money into the upgrades on the Assets/ Rolling Stock, That is used on their network. It is very encouraging to see the Leasing company taking the proactive approach to refreshing the trains, Making customers more satisfied and extending the life of the trains.

321448 at Doncaster Nov 2013

We look forward to more leasing companies taking this approach to improve the trains which they own.

^TB

Inside Story: First Transpennine Express.

First Transpennine Express are a Train Operating Company that operates services in Northern England and Scotland. They serve stations from Leeds, Manchester, York, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow.  

First Transpennine Express have got a fleet of trains that is Class 185’s, Class 170’s and Class 350’s.

185141 at York

The Class 350 will be introduced in 2014 with the new electrified routes to Scotland from Manchester.

The next inside story will be on Southeastern.

^TB

Inside Story: Heathrow Express & Heathrow Connect

Heathrow Express and Heathrow connect are the only two National Rail services to call at the Heathrow Airport stations (Also served by London Undergrounds Piccadilly Line.) Heathrow Express is the Non stop 15 minute service from Heathrow Central to London Paddington, Heathrow Connect is the stopping service that Calls at Ealing Broadway, West Ealing, Hanwell, Southall, Hayes & Harlington and Heathrow Central.   They are two separate companies but share revenue and Train Managers with each other. Heathrow Connect is subsidised by BAA (Heathrow Airports owners) and is part owned by First Group.

Heathrow Express does operate the free transfer from Heathrow terminals too.

Heathrow Connect uses a fleet of Class 360’2 5 carriage desiro units which are pictured below.

360204 at Ealing Broadway

Heathrow Express used a fleet of 332’s 5 carriage units, There is also a Class 350’2 for the underground shuttle service from Terminal 1,2,3 to Terminal 4 & 5. Both are pictured below.

360205 At Ealing Broadway 

Class 332 at London Paddington

Heathrow Connect is set to be absorbed into the Crossrail system in 2016.  

The next inside story will be about First Transpennine Express.

^TB

Inside story: Virgin Trains

Virgin trains are a train operating company that operate service on the West Coast Main Line from London to Scotland Via Crewe and Preston. They also operate services to Manchester Piccadilly, Liverpool Lime st, Birmingham New St and Edinburgh.

Virgin trains operates a fleet of Class 390 Pendolinos and Class 221 Super Voyagers. These formed the fleet until the Grayrigg crash when a Class 90 was hired with Mk3 carriages to cover for the missing Class 390.

The pendolinos have recently undergone an upgrade to see most of them lengthed to 11 carriages. This is all part of their 10 year overhaul.

Virgin Trains was in the spotlight in 2013 with the franchise system collapse after the contract to run the WCML franchise was awarded to First Group.  After Virgin appealed the whole UK railway franchising system collapsed and that leaves us where we are today.

Next Weeks Inside story will be about Heathrow Express and Heathrow Connect.

^TB

Inside story: Southern.

Southern are a Train Operating Company.operating in the south and southeast of the UK. They operate services from London Victoria and London Bridge to places such as Dartford, Brighton, Portsmouth Harbour, Southampton central and Littlehampton. Southern all operate most of the local services in the South London Area. These are shared with South West Trains and London Overground.  Southern also operate a service from South Croydon to Milton Keynes Central via Kensington Olympia, This is the only time Southern Class 377’s operate under Overhead Wires and operate North of the Capital.

As a part of the southern franchise the Gatwick Express services are run by southern. There is also plans for the thameslink services to be transferred to southern in 2016.

Southern's train fleet are formed of, Class 377s, Class 455s, Class 456s, Class 313s and Class 171s.

The Gatwick Express stock is formed of Class 442s.

There are currently plans for the new Class 377/6’s to be introduced by Mid 2014 when the Class 456’s are transferred to South West Trains.

Next weeks Inside Story will be about Virgin Trains

^TB

S stock Update.

As now there is 85 of the S stocks running on London Underground Sub - Surface  lines, I think now is a good time to ask you, The readers of the UK Rail Blog what you think of the trains. The trains apart from having a few teething problems with the S8 stock have been very reliable. The Trains now complete the whole of the running for the Metropolitan Line, Most of the running for the Hammersmith & City Line, Some of the running on the Circle Line and are currently being tested on the District Line.

Personally I feel that the trains look very nice and perform well. There is a number of nice features and I quite like the walk though carriages.

However this post is not what I think of then but What you think of them? Therefore I am going to ask you these three questions, If you could reply in the comments section at the bottom that would be great.

What do you think of the New S stock overall?

Do you think they are worth the Investment?

What do you think is the best / Worst feature of the S stock?

^TB

First Great Western Franchise Extension.

From the 12th October 2013 First will begin to operate the Great Western franchise extension. The extension is for 21 months and will take us up to 2016. This will see a number of changes take place under First. The first of which is the opening of the New Reading station and the Fly over. Then the beginning of the new electric train service on the Great Western Main Line to Oxford and then on High speed services to the south west.

As part of the new Franchise extension First will be implementing WiFi onto all of its High speed services and onto Thames trains services towards the middle of 2014. This strategy to get more passengers using the service and to allow them to still be connected on-line is a good plan which is already working on their Class 180 fleet. The WiFi will be free to use and covers the whole of the train. All you will need to do is give an email address to confirm the login details.

The refranchising process will begin in mid 2015 to start in 2016.

^TB