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Recliner[_2_] · January 10th 13, 11:35 AM posted to uk.railway,uk.transport.london

On Thu, 10 Jan 2013 12:29:14 +0000 (UTC), d
wrote:

On Thu, 10 Jan 2013 05:06:02 -0600
Recliner wrote:
Mike Bristow wrote:
In article ,
[D Stock referb]
Not that many. 6 or 7? In the lifetime of a train thats nothing.

It started in 2005; the trains will start to be withdrawn in 2015
IIRC, so it was at around the 2/3rds mark of the stocks life, and
will be in service for a decade.

Doesn't sound unreasonable to me.

Also, wasn't the D stock upgrade a relatively light one? They cut new
windows in the car ends, and replaced some surface materials, but the seats
stayed largely the same. And some work was certainly needed by then: the

Nore than just that. They had a shed load of dot matrix displays installed
on the trains with the accompanying wiring and computers. That couldn't have
been cheap. Why do all that to a train you're going to scrap 10 years later?
Its an utter waste of money.

Yes, I'd forgotten about the new displays. I suppose, in retrospect,
they should have done the refurb a few years earlier, had they known
then about the S stock plans. But wasn't the refurb done as part of
the Metronet PPP, with this refurb probably written into the contract
back in 2003 or earlier? And, yes, the PPP was a huge waste of money.

But given where we are now, wouldn't you complain even more if the D
stock wasn't replaced by the S stock in 2016, but by some other new
design of sub-surface stock in 10-15 years time?