News on the Underground

This comprises a selection of things seen or heard about on the Underground, plus a selection of news items and links.

Contents

The Cravens Unit in Service - Beating the Vandals - Pay Rise for Drivers - New Northern Line Timetable - Daylight Lighting - 

The Preserved 3-Car 1960 Tube Stock "Cravens Unit" (60TS DM-38TS Trailer-60TS DM) will return to operational use on Monday 26th August.  Operating in addition to the normal Northern Line service, the unit will offer a shuttle service between High Barnet and East Finchley during the period 09.30-16.30.

This is also a good opportunity for track bashers to "do" both centre tracks north of East Finchley.

You must have a valid LU ticket, in addition a Souvenir ticket will be available for the princely sum of £1.00.

This is the first tour since the July 2000 Central Line night tour due to defects in one of the DM's (nasty cracks following a side swipe at Hainault in 94).

Beating the Vandals - The east end of the District Line has always been bad for vandalism, particularly during the summer holidays.   Many is the time Tubeprune has had to duck as a brick or a milk crate came flying towards the cab window.  It was so bad, they used to call the bit between Plaistow and East ham, "Bomb Alley".  Now the Underground has managed to reduce the problem along the line by almost 50% with a special campaign of surveillance and patrolling.   They've even used helicopters.  You see - good police work can succeed.   LU's press release about it is here.   Posted 22 August 2002.

Pay Rise for Drivers - LU has announced a pay rise for drivers, bringing them up to £31,000 a year.  Not bad, but it does involve shift work.  Posted 16 August 2002.

New Northern Line Timetable
London Underground announced this week (12 August 2002) that they are to introduce a new Northern Line timetable.  The main change is that there will be an increase in the number of train running between Kennington and Morden from the present 28 per peak hour to 30 per peak hour.  Nothing remarkable in that you might say but, for the Northern Line, it's been many years since there were 30 trains per hour south of Kennington.

It will not be easy.  The crews will have to be stepped back at Morden and there will have to be slick operation at Kennington and Camden Town.  At Kennington, 20 trains an hour off each branch (via the City or via Charing Cross) come into a junction where 10 trains have to reverse and 30 carry on south.  At Camden Town, half the trains from the City and from Charing Cross are divided between the Edgware branch and the Highgate Branch.  This is not an easy operation and needs good management if it is to succeed on a regular basis.

Daylight Lighting
Early in July 2002, trains began appearing with a new type of in-car lighting tube called "daylight lighting".  Ray Bennett reported this in uk.transport.london and mentioned that,

"For those that are wondering what one of these is, it's an ordinary tube light that has been coated with the right phosphors to produce a light-level & colour that is very close to "daylight".(Sylvannia Colour 860).  These are used in such places as dental surgeries, fashion houses etc. to give accurate colour reproduction."

The new lighting has been reported as being installed on trains on the Metropolitan and District Lines and has been seen on Tottenham Court Road station.  8 July 2002.

Thetube.com, LU's own website, has daily press releases which are always worth a look.  They also have travel updates.