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[email protected] · July 1st 12, 01:35 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In article ,
(Bruce) wrote:

wrote:

On Sun, 1 Jul 2012 01:22:41 -0700 (PDT), e27002
wrote:

Read on Wikipedia that Saturday was the A stock's last day of revenue
service. Can anybody confirm?

I thought that they were going to keep a few around for nostaglia
runs, similar to the 38s or to the Sarah Siddons.

They are an important part of UK railway history. In 1962 they were
ahead of their time.

In what way were they ahead of their time?
Aluminium construction had already been done on previous stock so
that cannot be it, fluorescent lighting like wise and the control
equipment was similar to that already used on other stocks. So far
from being ahead of their time they were simply another marque of
stock using existing techniques which isn't a bad thing if you want
something reliable.

The primary suspension used a bonded rubber/metal sandwich in shear.
It was called Metalastik and was manufactured by Dunlop.

Since Dunlop's demise, the rights to Metalastik technology were sold
to Trelleborg of Sweden.

Metalastik rubber suspension was first used on 1956 prototype tube stock,
surely?

The only unique factor now gone is Cravens-built stock in scheduled
passenger service on LUL.

--
Colin Rosenstiel