8 car bakerloos

[Ben]

Something has puzzled me for a while now. When the bakerloo was extended to take over the mets stanmore branch in the thirties, the two new stations built at St. Johns Wood and Swiss Cottage were built to take 8 car trains, yet at the time 6/7 cars were run, and indeed nothing longer than 7 cars has since.

Why then were these stations built to take 8 cars? Was this just a matter of 'future proofing', or was it invisiged that the other tunnel stations would eventually be lengthened to take 8 cars aswell?

Many thanks!

[PGtrips]

I suspect, future proofing policy at that time - Highgate on the otherwise 7 car Northern, dating from practically the same period, was also built for 8 cars. I would imagine the costs of doing this at construction are negligible as compared with having to extend platforms later, with all the attendant disruption to services, etc.

[Deleted]

Highgate was actually built for 9-cars because of the 9-car project on the Northern at the time.

[PGtrips]

Presumably, Highgate was never used as such for 9 cars as it did not open until after the outbreak of war and the cessation of 9 car operation? Was there ever any 9 car operation to Archway, my understanding is that 9 car operation was limited to Edgware - Kennington.

Now we really are off topic for the Bakerloo line.

[Deleted]

yes, that's correct. The eventual plan was for 9-cars on the outside sections too and as the LNER stations were quite long anyway it was quite possible. Presumably if there was another New Works program certain stations in the central area would be 9-cars, avoiding the complicated arrangements that were implemented at Tottenham Court Road.

[PGtrips]

rob said:

avoiding the complicated arrangements that were implemented at Tottenham Court Road.

Which were?

[Deleted]

The 9-car train, after Golders Green, would stop so that the last two cars remained in the tunnel at each station. The Guard was in the 7th car so that he would always be in the station and he had a switch to cut the doors out.

At Tottenham Court Road, however, the first two cars stopped in the tunnel and the last two carriages could be used.

It started using Standard Stock but with the start of 1938 tube stock and the war it was less necessary and was withdrawn. This left extra DM and trailer cars, so these were reformed to make trains with the arrival of the 1949ts. These were used on the Bakerloo (so we are almost back to being relevant to the thread!)

The questions is, were these cars tipped out totally because no station south of there could accommodate 9-cars and what was the arrangement in the reverse?

[happybunny]

How many cars does the Northern line trains have now?

[Dmitri]

happybunny said:

How many cars does the Northern line trains have now?

6.

[Deleted]

It is now 6 long cars, but it was 7-cars before the 1995ts.

The 9-car project added two cars but the 1938 stock effectively added an extra car because of the elimination of equipment compartments.

[Ben]

Should have put this thread in the Northern Line board

'Tube Trains under London' contains details about the opperation of 9 car trains on the northern. Page 73-4. Well worth a look imho.

[metman]

To return to the thread(ish), it was just as well that St Jonnys Wood and Swiss Cottage were built to 8 car length otherwise the 7 car 96ts would have trouble getting into it! Now that's forward thinking!!!

[Deleted]

benedict said:

Something has puzzled me for a while now. When the bakerloo was extended to take over the mets stanmore branch in the thirties, the two new stations built at St. Johns Wood and Swiss Cottage were built to take 8 car trains, yet at the time 6/7 cars were run, and indeed nothing longer than 7 cars has since.

Why then were these stations built to take 8 cars? Was this just a matter of 'future proofing', or was it invisiged that the other tunnel stations would eventually be lengthened to take 8 cars aswell?

Many thanks!

There was thought at the time of increasing the Bakerloo's capacity by running 8-car trains of Standard stock, but this would have required extension of all the Bakerloo platforms.

In the end, possibly because the Central tunnels needed reconstruction anyway to attain standard clearances, LT decided to extend the Central line platforms for 8 Standard stock cars, and the Bakerloo ran 7-car trains of 38TS.

[plampin]

as is already said the bakerloo line platforms were built to a shorter length than most only being 288 feet long when the line first opened compared to the hampstead tube (west end branch) being built with 350 foot long platforms. No-one really knows why this was but it was probably down to Mr Yerkeys

[Deleted]

The three Yerkes tubes (Bakerloo, Hampstead, Piccadilly) were originally promoted by four separate companies, each of which had obtained its own Act of Parliament before Yerkes bought them. Presumably the stations were built to the lengths authorised on these various Acts.