London Banter - View Single Post - 5 car Overground trains to Watford Junction

Robin9 · January 12th 15, 10:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by

On Sun, 11 Jan 2015 17:06:28 +0000 (UTC)
Recliner wrote:
d wrote:
On Wed, 7 Jan 2015 07:09:03 -0800 (PST)
David B wrote:
I always thought modern traction actually used less current during initial
acceleration but continued to draw high currents giving them better
acceleration at higher speeds.

378s are quite slow to accelerate on the Watford DC lines so I suspect the
current draw is too mahoosive

They're just slow full stop. They're completely the wrong sort of train for a
metro service. But no doubt the slight design mod of an existing outer
suburban
train was the cheaper option.

I happened to have my GPS with me on an LO trip to Watford yesterday, and
found that the peak speed was about 45mph. Considering how closely spaced
the stations are, that's probably not bad, and hardly slower than an S
stock train would do it. S stock trains reach their higher speeds of about
60mph only on the longer non-stop sections, such as Finchley Rd to Wembley
Park.

Their top speed isn't the issue - its 75mph according to wonkypedia. Its their
acceleration. On the ELL they're so slow off the mark they barely get up to any
decent speed before they have to slow down again for the next stop. I can only
assume the stations on the watford branch are further apart. Either that or we
enter conspiracy theory land and assume there's a deliberate policy on the ELL
to provide a slow service.

--
Spud

The stations on the ELL are very close together.