London Underground vehicles

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The London Underground has two different vehicle profiles

The history of the vehicles of the London Underground is as complex as the history of the underground railway itself. A variety of different vehicles have been used since the first line opened in January 1863 .

Classification

There are two different types of routes on the London Underground network. First, the "Subsurface" lines, the tunnel sections of which were often built using the open or mined construction method and which have a clearance profile comparable to the British long-distance railway network with minor restrictions in height and carriage length, and secondly the "Tube" tubular railways, whose tunnels are clearly marked smaller and circular cross-section (with a standard diameter of 3.56 meters) due to the construction with tunnel boring machines. The vehicles are adapted to the resulting boundary profile , the car body cross-section is significantly smaller and rounded in the upper part, and the car floor is significantly lower. Both subnetworks have the standard track width of 1435 mm and identical busbar dimensions. There is also mixed operation on external routes, both with large and small profiles and with railway vehicles. Because of the different heights of the car floors (approx. 1000 millimeters for large and 600 mm for tubular rail cars), the platforms on mixed-service routes have a compromise height, and small-profile cars must be boarded downwards.

The designation of the individual types depends on the vehicle boundary profile:

  • Vehicles for the small-profile lines ("Tube Stock") are labeled with the year in which they were first ordered, e. B. "1992 (Tube) Stock".
  • Vehicles for the large-profile routes ("Sub-Surface Stock") are marked with a letter, which for some types is supplemented with the short form of the year of the first order, e.g. B. "D78 Stock". This class designation system comes from the District Railway , it was retained by the London Passenger Transport Board and later.

Train formation

Trains in today's series are usually made up of two or three units. The individual units are composed of two to four cars, with the following types of car:

designation Abbreviation description
Driving Motor Car DM Railcar with a driver's cab.
Non-Driving Motor Car NDM Railcar without a driver's cab.
Uncoupling Non-Driving Motor Car UNDM Railcar with a shunting driver's cab that enables independent driving in depots.
Trailer car T non-powered middle or sidecar .

All vehicles also offer space for passengers; this was partly different with earlier vehicles. A London peculiarity are the asymmetrical cab ends marked with "A" and "D". These designations have nothing to do with rows A and D of the large profile network. The control lines in the types that can be coupled to form longer train units are arranged asymmetrically and mirrored, with the exception of row C, which was procured for the "Circle Line". Only »A« - with »D« ends can be electrically coupled. Two A or D ends of the same series can only be coupled mechanically and usually pneumatically. This saves the otherwise necessary division of the line couplings, and the space available is extremely limited, especially in the case of the small-profile tubular rail vehicles. As a rule, A-ends should point north and west. Because of the many triangular tracks in the network, however, it is difficult to keep up with this consistently. Occasional turning trips cannot be avoided.

The couplings that can be separated during operation are similar for large and small profiles, but because of their different heights, vehicles of both subnetworks cannot be coupled to one another.

numbering

Each car has its own car number. The last two characters are identical for wagons that are coupled to form a train unit. Numbers are not used for whole trains. The numbers were assigned according to various criteria over time. For this reason, no system can be identified in the current fleet list.

Car types

Tube rail car ("Tube Stock")

1995 type tube train

Sub-surface floor

Subsurface trains of the types CP and R
D78 type subsurface train

Now only type S Stock cars are in operation

  • A floor (saloon floor), designed with fewer doors and a large number of seats for the service of longer routes and used for a long time on the routes leading from Baker Street to the northwest. Originally supplied with symmetrical car ends, when the car was converted to conductors-free operation, asymmetrical A and D ends were also created in this series.
  • A60 floor and identical A62 floor ( Metropolitan Line , East London Line ), decommissioned
  • B Stock ( Metropolitan District Railway )
  • C floor (for "Circle Line", comparable to Row A, but more doors and a higher proportion of standing room. With symmetrical car ends, because of the ring line operation, can be freely coupled without preferential orientation, Metropolitan District Railway)
  • C69 floor and identical C77 floor ( Circle Line , District Line and Hammersmith & City Line ), decommissioned
  • D Stock (Metropolitan District Railway)
  • D78 Stock (District Line), retired
  • E Stock (Metropolitan District Railway)
  • F Stock (District Railway), a well-known feature are the oval front windows
  • G Stock (later converted into Q23 Stock), called "Horsebox". Two cars had cabs at each end and were traveling on the South Acton Branch.
  • H Stock (collective series for older and non-modernized wagons of the District Railway, the H stands for Handworked, the doors had to be operated by hand)
  • K Stock (procured by the District Railway in 1926 and 1927, the first series of large profiles with asymmetrical A and D ends, later converted into Q27 Stock)
  • L floor (later converted into Q31 floor)
  • M floor (later converted into Q35 floor)
  • O Stock "Metadyne Stock" (Metropolitan Railway)
  • P floor
  • Q38 floor (only new building Q floor)
  • R Stock ( District Line ), some trains were unpainted or had a red decorative stripe
  • S Stock , (initially Metropolitan Line , later all Subsurface lines) Successor to the A60 / 62 Stock, C69 / 77 Stock and D78 Stock and the only subsurface series in operation
  • T Stock ( Metropolitan Railway ), some cars were normal passenger cars before the conversion

literature

Web links

Commons : Vehicles of the London Underground  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The '38 Stock is still on the Island Line