WTT 276

[ruislip]

This question, generally speaking, could apply to any Met WTT during the era of A-stock uncoupling and recoupling. When 4-car units were re-coupled together, and existing 8-car trains were brought into service, during the latter portion of Sunday's service, was that done to save time reforming the 4-car units into 8-car units for the start of service on Monday?

[Deleted]

I am fairly sure that Sunday evenings were deemed more "busy" than the rest of Sunday. The same principle applied to the tube lines when they uncoupled - i.e. short trains Sunday morning (and sometimes into the early afternoon) with full-length trains for the evening service until the end of traffic.

Uncoupling ceased on the Picc and Central December 1959 and on the Northern and Bakerloo a year later (apart from some odd quirks - e.g. Mill Hill shuttle Sundays until 1967).

Now going off on a tangent slightly, when uncoupling was done on the Northern in the 1950s, one timetable at least (there may have been others) saw the last train uncouple at Morden Mon-Fri evening at 20.39 and the first recouple at 20.49 !

Over the ten years or so that uncoupling operated on the Northern Line post-war, there were several variations and permutations. For example, one timetable scheduled four cars via Charing Cross and three cars via the City. Another saw a mix of both on both routes.

The uncoupling arrangements pre-war on the Pre-1938 Tube Stock on the Northern was far more complex because of it being "car stock" rather than "unit stock" and is worth a book in its own right !

I wonder how it really worked in what they call "the good old days".

[metman]

Of course when the UNDM were introduced it made life harder!

[ruislip]

Another question I have from this WTT has to do with coupling/uncoupling on the Amersham line. Was it always performed at Rickmansworth?

[Deleted]

Uncoupling of the Amersham service was first done at Amersham.

From WTT No.261 (21/1/77) it was done at Rickmansworth.