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[email protected] · August 19th 12, 04:36 PM posted to uk.transport.london,uk.railway

On 19/08/2012 11:07, wrote:
On Aug 2, 9:58 pm, "
wrote:
On 02/08/2012 17:25, wrote:

On Aug 2, 5:47 am, danny burstein wrote:
They've been given an extension before they haev to
bring their radio equipment up to date...

Would anyone know if they still have working wayside telephones in the
subway and elevated lines, in case the radios do not work?

I think that they still do. The blue light that you see in tunnels
indicate a phone and fire extinguisher.

Don't know what the situation is on the structures as I did not recall
seeing anything.

Telephones normally need very little maintenance. However, systems
installed decades years ago may suffer from line wire insulation
decay. Telephone sets may need to be upgraded from rotary to Touch
Tone to work on modern internal PBX switches or distribution menus.

How exactly do the the tunnel telephones work? Do they connect to
somebody as soon as you pick up the handset, do you have to dial a
number or do you crank a dynamo? And whom exactly do they ring?

Here in London, every cab has a handset with two leads on the end, which
you can connect to two separate wires that run along the tunnel wall,
though I don't know whom they ring.

They don't normally use the handsets, however.

They used to have that same feature on the Glasgow Subway, and I know
that the telephones would ring the following station. This was before
the 1977 rebuild and the old Glasgow subway trains were not equipped
with radios, however, though I generally don't know what the situation
is today on that system.

The tunnel telephone wires in London also serve another purpose; in an
emergency shorting them out will discharge traction current. There
was a news story a few years ago which totally mis-understood how it
worked and said that the traction current itself flowed through the
wires. It doesn't of course. At certain locations there was a short
section of these wires, less than a metre long, for testing the
handsets. I remember seeing one of these attached to a wall
somewhere, but I can't remember where it was.

There was on Youtube a video that showed a breakdown on the Glasgow
Subway, before the 1977-1980 refurbishment, which I wanted to post here.
Alas, however, I believe that it was removed over copyright issues.

Anyway, the train operator in that video had to contact the next station
with the handset as the Glasgow Subway apparently did not have radios then.

It was also a brilliant video in that it showed the rolling stock that
preceded the ones that are now in revenue service.

Can anybody say what the current rolling stock is called or what its
model number is, BTW? What about the preceding ones?

Graeme Wall · August 19th 12, 06:46 PM posted to uk.transport.london,uk.railway

On 19/08/2012 17:36, wrote:
There was on Youtube a video that showed a breakdown on the Glasgow
Subway, before the 1977-1980 refurbishment, which I wanted to post here.
Alas, however, I believe that it was removed over copyright issues.

Anyway, the train operator in that video had to contact the next station
with the handset as the Glasgow Subway apparently did not have radios then.

It was also a brilliant video in that it showed the rolling stock that
preceded the ones that are now in revenue service.

Can anybody say what the current rolling stock is called or what its
model number is, BTW? What about the preceding ones?

Unless it's changed recently the power cars were built by Metro-Cammell
and the trailers by Hunslet-Barclay. There's also 3 Clayton battery
locos. Don't know if they actually run to model or class numbers.

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read, substitute trains for rail.
Railway Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail

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