London Banter - View Single Post - Waterloo & City special service Sat 26 and Sun 27 January 2013

[email protected] · January 31st 13, 12:12 AM posted to uk.transport.london

In article , (Spyke)
wrote:

On 30/01/2013 23:36, Peter Smyth wrote:

But they did improve the signalling during the closure - hence why they
can now run five trains at once instead of four trains.

As for increasing train lengths, I suspect the main constraint is the
very limited depot space available for stabling rather than the actual
platforms.

My understanding is that the signalling was replaced like-for-like
rather than there being a fundamental redesign.

I believe 5 car trains of the old (1940) stock were possible, but the
individual cars were slightly shorter than those of the 1992 stock,
and the platforms at Bank have since been reduced in length to give
longer safety overlaps.

Perhaps the Southern railway had it right with the 1940 stock, with a
mixture of motor and trailer coaches that could be remarshalled as
needed so a failure on one car wouldn't take out a whole train set!

The Southern train formation was to allow single cars to run off-peak (or
the slack hours as they called it then) and five car trains in the peaks.
They were a bit more casual with coupling and uncoupling in those days.

--
Colin Rosenstiel