On Jun 9, 1:15*pm, wrote:
On Jun 9, 8:57*pm, MIG wrote:

However, that's only a minor
nitpick. They are lovely trains to see around, especialy in a red
livery. It brings back soooo many memories..
Indeed, I could not agree more. *They were wonderful trains. *They
almost define my years in London. *Will there ever be another build of
subway trains as iconic?
They were the first large production run of tube sized trains that had
smooth roofs and all the equipment under the floors, avoiding the
messy look of the "standard" stock, so a real leap forward in design.- Hide quoted text -

Visually iconic maybe - but talk to any fleet engineer and you won't
hear the same. They were notoriously unreliable from the word go,
right from the very start. When new they never attained the
reliability of the late builds of *''standard'' (or pre-38 stock if
prefer that term), and by 1960s ''standards'' were actually *much more
reliable. Just about the only advantage to operators of 38s was no
equipment compartments above floor taking up space.

Also IMHO the layman easily confuses 38s with 59s and 62s *- they do
look very similar externally and internally. *I wonder how many ''fond
memories'' of 38s are actualy not 38s at all.

I'm pretty sure the average punter was incapable of telling the
difference between a SR 4Sub and 4EPB or between 12ICBC and 12Rep/TC
and even nright at the end of SR Mk.1 there were still ''enthusiats''
incapble of determing Veps and Cigs other than by numbers. * 38s and
62s they had *no hope unless primed with red and aluminuim colours - I
bet they'd not know the details.

My "London Period" was 1967 thru 1975. The only Red painted stock at
that time was the Standards and the 1938. 1938 Stock had much cleaner
lines. OTOH, the oval windows on some Standard Stock cars were very
easy on the eye.

My experience was only as a passenger/enthusiast. I never knew that
the 1938 stock was a maintenance headache. Who would have known?
They seemed so solid.