On Aug 11, 5:25*pm, wrote:
Do you understand how train procurement works?

Yes, but in the long term I think it would be better to have a few common
types of trains rather than saving a few quid with some other manufacturer
who'll cut everything to the bone to win the contract.

Better for whom? If we were buying the trains on the traditional "you
deliver them, then you go away and we maintain them" model, then I'd
see your logic - but as it is, all cost savings are real over the
train's life, not just short-term.

Other metro systems use this approach , I don't see why LUL can't. Its not
as if LULs approach has brought us particularly good trains so far anyway..

For the bits of LUL which are comparable to other metro systems (ie
the interoperable, interoperated, 'lines are based on services offered
rather than physical track' bits), a single approach is now being
taken for the first time ever, which is the S-stock.

For the bits of LUL that are self-contained and can't sensibly be
operated in any other service pattern than today (it'd be technically
possible to swap branches NW of Baker Street between the Jubilee and
the Bakerloo I guess, and there's obviously the Northern Line split
potential, but that's hair-splitting), the benefits that arise from
doing that don't really exist.

I'd also say that the A, C, 67, 73, 92 and 95 stocks are among the
best metro trains from their respective eras I've been on globally
[the 83 and D stocks lose due to their moronic door arrangements]. The
09 looks pretty impressive too, as do the pics and mock-ups of the S.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org