London Banter - View Single Post

Colin Rosenstiel · May 14th 06, 07:49 PM posted to uk.transport.london

In article ,
(Tom Anderson) wrote:

On Sun, 14 May 2006, Colin Rosenstiel wrote:

In article ,
(Matthew P Jones) wrote:

When the designed the A stock, they built prototypes to try out new
ideas. The coaches before A stock were compartments and the A stock
was a kind of compromise between a normal underground carriage and
a compartment stock coach.

Not exactly. They converted parts of compartment stock vehicles for
trials but they weren't very close to the eventual A stock design I
don't think.

Why "S" for the new stock? The last surface` stock was "D".

Wasn't it D because it was for the District line, like the C is for
the Circle and A is, er, the Amersham service (and not, sadly, the
'Ammersmith and City)? In which case S might be because it it's
Shared by all the Subsurface lines.

They started the letter series again at A for the Met in 1960 but
skipped B, so they could us C for Circle I suppose. D just followed so
the fact that is also matched District was of little note.

Before then they had gone from A to R plus T from the start of
electrification in 1903.

I don't understand why the new stock isn't E.

--
Colin Rosenstiel