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TRIVIA: Things you saw travelling on the LU that you don't see today

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AY1975

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Following on from the long-running thread on things you saw travelling on BR that you don't see today at www.railforums.co.uk/threads/trivia-things-you-saw-travelling-on-br-that-you-dont-see-today.151953/, I thought it would be nice to have a similar thread on things you used to see when travelling on the London Underground that you don't see today.

Here's a few to start you off:

Guards on trains.

Manned ticket collectors' booths.

Wooden slatted escalators.

"Passimeters" (free-standing ticket offices that also doubled as ticket collectors' booths, where you had to buy or show a ticket on your way in and show your pass or give up your used ticket on your way out - I think a few of them are still in situ but no longer used).

Edmondson card-sized tickets, including some green ones and some yellow ones with a chocolatey brown magnetic rear side to operate the old-style (pre-1987ish) automatic ticket gates which had signs on saying "yellow tickets" as you had to have one of those yellow tickets to operate them. Old-style tickets normally just had the fare and station of issue on them.

Free-standing ticket machines with a diagonal illuminated panel at the top indicating the fare for tickets from that machine.
 
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Mikey C

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Luggage racks! (as with the A stock)

Those platform chocolate bar machines that never actually dispensed anything...
 

jellybaby

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Chocolate vending machines on the platform.

Folding map vending machines

Payphones on platforms
 

Busaholic

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A bar on the platform at Sloane Square (westbound) - down your pint as the train comes into the platform and jump on just before the doors close! Almost unimaginable now, on all sorts of levels. In fact, I'd almost think I dreamed it if it wasn't confirmed in print.
 

Taunton

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Standing on the platform everywhere with no idea when the next train might turn up, even if a destination was shown on the indicator.
 

Busaholic

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Racing between the platforms at Camden Town because you didn't know (in one direction) which branch the train you wanted derived from. This lasted into the early 1970s.
 

Mikey C

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Standing on the platform everywhere with no idea when the next train might turn up, even if a destination was shown on the indicator.

Or inaccurate indicator boards in general. Before the signalling upgrade, the ones at Golders Green for example were hopelessly inaccurate, which for a service with 2 completely separate lines through central London was really annoying!
 

deltic

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Dark dingy platforms

Revenue inspections on the train (do these still happen - havent seen one in years)

People reading paid for newspapers

Picking up left behind paid for newspapers for a free read

People trying to flog used daily travelcards

People passing on daily travelcards to other passengers that they had finished with

Silence on most station platforms between trains (no stream of announcements)

Not knowing if any trains were running till you got down to the platform

Virtually no luggage/buggies etc or young children on trains in the morning peak
 

yorksrob

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I remember seeing the wooden escallators for the first time (never seen wooden ones anywhere since). Gone after the KX fire.

Those things that looked like grey plastic lightbulbs hanging from the train ceiling (which one was supposed to hang on to).

Haven't seen one of those in a while.
 

deltic

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"cat flaps" for luggage by the ticket gates

staff wearing peaked hats

smoking carriage

Am I imagining it or did platform dispatch staff use bardic lights in the days before todays' batons

door opening buttons that actually opened the doors
 

ChiefPlanner

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Lit oil lamps on the back of the older District / Circle trains

No graffiti at all - and red liveried trains on about half of the Network

Smoking allowed everywhere - even in lifts !

A vast difference in the number of people using trains - even at places like South Wimbledon , you could often the platform to yourself.
 

jellybaby

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door opening buttons that actually opened the doors
Good point. I remember a snowy day just after the 95 stock had begun on the Northern line. As we reached East Finchley the driver announced he was putting the doors on manual so not too much cold and wet came in at each stop.
 

bionic

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Plastic armrests dividing the longitudinal seats.

Edit: on the Bakerloo anyway. (They took them out because the kiddies at Harlesden and Stonebridge were booting them out and using them as weapons and clubs to smash the windows with. There was a huge metal spike on the end!
 
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bionic

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Doors starting to open whilst the train was still coming to a stand.

Can still be done on the Bakerloo stock. The speed sensing allows the driver to drop the deadman in rheo 1 and hold and release the doors under 7mph. Drivers would often pop the doors early if they thought they were going to slide through the CSDE loop. Other times it's just pure laziness and repetition. Above 7mph you'll get an emergency Westinghouse application and the front console door buttons won't work.

I think it can be done on the picc too. None of the newer stock let you do it.
 

Bald Rick

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Can still be done on the Bakerloo stock. The speed sensing allows the driver to drop the deadman in rheo 1 and hold and release the doors under 7mph. Drivers would often pop the doors early if they thought they were going to slide through the CSDE loop. Other times it's just pure laziness and repetition. Above 7mph you'll get an emergency Westinghouse application and the front console door buttons won't work.

I think it can be done on the picc too. None of the newer stock let you do it.

It happens on the Vic Line too. Saw it happen on Thursday.
 

urbophile

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Going back a bit, but trains with a mix of clerestory stock and the slightly newer 'flared' stock on the District Line. Painted red of course.

British Rail signage (1950s lozenge style or the later black and white) at stations on the Wimbledon and Richmond branches (and north of Queens Park on the Bakerloo). I think they have now all been replaced with LU or LO roundels.
 

simple simon

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Going back a bit, but trains with a mix of clerestory stock and the slightly newer 'flared' stock on the District Line. Painted red of course.

The London Transport Museum is currently trying to restore a four car train which will include both clerestory and 'flared' stock. Whether they succeed depends on them raising sufficient funding. I think they need something like £200,000.
 

Ken H

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Unpainted trains... And I'm only 20!

'silver' trains were seen as more modern in the 1960's. think the first were the cammel laird driving motors on central line. they painted old 'standard stock' trailers silver to match. some went on to be test trains for victoria line ATO on the Hainult loop.
 

Dstock7080

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'silver' trains were seen as more modern in the 1960's. think the first were the cammel laird driving motors on central line. they painted old 'standard stock' trailers silver to match. some went on to be test trains for victoria line ATO on the Hainult loop.
The first silver cars on the Underground were R Stock on the District Line from 1952.
Next were the prototype 1956 Stock for the Piccadilly Line.
 

simple simon

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Here is an R stock train at Sloane Square. Of the three cars seen here I suspect that the far left and far right are unpainted aluminium whilst the middle one would originally been painted red but was changed to white (or silver) paint to match the aluminium subsurface trains.

R47_59_49-Unpainteda.jpg
 

deltic

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Stations that shut on Sundays

Station that opened for a Sunday market - Shoreditch
 
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