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Passenger Trains > Henry PosnerDate: 06/09/19 13:35 Henry Posner Author: Hartington On friday I went for a ride on a train here in the UK.
A little background. London Transport, over a period of years, purchased trains for the Metropolitan Line then the Circle and Hammersmith and City and finally for the District. By the turn of the century the Metropolitan trains were getting to the end of their life and the Circle/Hammersmith trains were getting a bit ropey. After much debate the decision was made to replace all of the trains, even the District trains. Those District trains ("D" stock) were in better condition and a company was formed to rebuild them for use on the national network, not just the Underground. Installed under the floor are some small diesel motors acting as generators to supply the electric motors installed for the Underground (massive simplification in my description!). The rebuilders will configure the trains almost any way you want from leaving the London Transport interior to completely new. The are 4 doors and you can have one, or more, of them blanked off. After various trials and tribulations the first conversions have gone into service on the line between Bedford and Bletchley here in the UK. Last friday I took myself off to have a ride. I was rather imporessed. Unless you listen carefully you can't hear the diesels. The've blanked off two doors (leaving two working). There's a mixture of seats with both longitudinal and transverse seats. There are USB ports all over the place. They've even fitted a toilet. On arrival at Bedord a group boarded with some of the people in hi-vis with the name of the converters (Vivarail). After we left one rather dapper gentleman began to wander down the train and stopped to ask me what I thought of the "new" train. I pointed out they weren't really new and commented on his IAIS lapel badge which I think caught him by surprise. Anyway, he then introduced himself as "Henry" at which I commented I thought he was involved in the project. Technical press reports here in the UK suggest that he may be interested in bringning some units to the USA as a means of testing markets for commuter service at low cost. Quite how you square a London Transport train with FRA safety requirements I'm not sure and I didn't get a chance to ask because we then pulled in at my destination. I guess Henry was checking on his investment. Date: 06/09/19 13:46 Re: Henry Posner Author: joemvcnj I'd like to see them on places like the NJT Princeton Dinky, though with high level platforms, they are a little narrower than the normal 10' width that we have. I see they retained that weird LU coupler.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/09/19 13:50 by joemvcnj. Date: 06/09/19 17:40 Re: Henry Posner Author: AndyBrown |