Paul Corfield wrote:

Really? Even if they were becoming disproportionately expensive to
maintain, had declining reliability and were not offering the
facilities that fare paying passengers would like?

Fair point. But yes, they were - I think they were 1937 stock. They were
only all withdrawn when the dispatch staff were removed from platforms and
monitors were installed. I suspect the last ones were the later 1950s
batch, though.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DRG_Class_ET_171

You're normally pretty rational in your choices so I am surprised to
see a "run trains forever" comment from you.

It's more that I see the often poor state of the infrastructure and wonder
if that should really have been the first priority.

Neil
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Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK. Put first name before the at to reply.