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1992 stock Refurbishment?
- Thread starter c2c
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Yes - that's it. It was fitted with LED lighting in 2008. It was dropped because it was deemed too expensive to roll out to other trains.
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I guess LED tech was too expensive back then. I remember going on the mock ups of the new Thameslink trains c. 2014 and they featured LED lighting, which at the time was deemed as the bees knees. In fact, the Thameslink LED lighting looks even more crude than what they had on the Central line as the LEDs beads themselves are large and visible rather than hidden behind a more translucent material.
Nym
Established Member
It's more to do with "Legislation wasn't removing all fluorescent lighting from availability" back then...
boiledbeans2
Member
My guess is much simpler. The 72 stock are fully tagged. There's no white space left. So they've moved on to the 92 stock. Once there's no white space left on the 92 stock, they'll move on to another stock.
And what with CLIP taking up some of the spare stock, and budget cuts meaning it's a choice between painting graffiti vs repairing stock to keep it in service, theres probably only a choice of a graffitied train or no train at all. And it's unfortunate situation but it's better to have a train at all.
Not really. They shouldn't be running any trains in service that have been tagged as it just causes more and more graffiti (if it's cleaned up quickly people get bored and move on - if it stays on in service then it becomes almost an advertisement for others).
This then ends up with the entire fleet tagged and then you are really stumped.
bluegoblin7
Established Member
There is neither the spare stock, staff nor money to do this.
Once again: this is the reality of managed decline. Everyone who has supported the removal of TfL’s central funding has supported this outcome. There really is no alternative. The gold plating goes first in times of financial challenge.
Once again: this is the reality of managed decline. Everyone who has supported the removal of TfL’s central funding has supported this outcome. There really is no alternative. The gold plating goes first in times of financial challenge.
Nym
Established Member
An issue with TfL for some time has been that engrained inefficiency in their systems. I honestly don't see that changing.
eg. Recession, "Oh, lets design a new moquette rather than just order more of the standard one, yeah, need to do this, oh and change the floor colour, and do it five units into the corrosion repairs so we need to pointlessly re-visit the first five units."
eg. Recession, "Oh, lets design a new moquette rather than just order more of the standard one, yeah, need to do this, oh and change the floor colour, and do it five units into the corrosion repairs so we need to pointlessly re-visit the first five units."
southern442
Established Member
So we should just stop running the trains? "The Bakerloo line is suspended for the next week whilst we take all of the graffiti off of the trains and then it will probably also be suspended the week after whilst we then repair all of them" is not something I would imagine going down too well with the tens of thousands of people who use it every day...
It does make me think of an old version of the future, in the same way the movie 'Forbidden Planet' does - you can really appreciate how groundbreaking/modern the design was at the time, but now seems very dated. (This creates an aesthetic that personally I really enjoy, but I obviously understand that 99% of people really hate...)
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Dstock7080
Established Member
New York did precisely that in the late-80s under “The Clean Car Program”, posters up saying services will be restored once ALL the trains on one line were taken back to depot and cleaned. None were let out until all had been dealt with. Then moved onto the next Line in order.
Depot security fencing was beefed up before the Program started.
Look at New York Subway now.
That's exactly my point. It's too long gone now for Bakerloo and you are in a really sticky situation.
My argument on Central Line is/was they should be taking trains out of service straight away to clean them, even if it results in cancellations, because if you don't you end up with the bakerloo with an enormous backlog which is much harder to deal with. Also, I suspect once they have been graffitied badly, you'll attract other more 'serious' vandalism which will result in trains out of service anyway.
It would also increase political pressure to apprehend the people responsible if TfL wanted to (though there are probably political reasons they don't want to do this). You could put big posters up saying "TfL is sorry for the surge in vandalism causing serious train cancellations" everywhere. London has the benefit of many politicians and journalists using the network and they will escalate this quickly when they personally get delayed because of this.
This was the playbook in the 70s/80s to deal with it.
southern442
Established Member
I do appreciate these are workable suggestions, I'm just saying that in the current climate both would go down like a turd in a casserole with the travelling public (i.e. not very well). Particularly on the Central Line which is still extremely busy in spite of the elizabeth line, and suffers from severe reliability problems, where you have an opportunity cost to clean or repair the trains, you could well end up in a situation where taking one train out of service to be cleaned effectively results in the cancellation of two or more trains from operating. You might even end up with a backlog of trains needing repairs which even if we reached Gotham City levels of crime would be a FAR worse backlog to deal with than one of trains covered in graffiti.
Consider the situation at the start of play if they discover five trains have been tagged overnight, that's then five trains out of service, which then have to be cleaned instead of the three train faults from yesterday being looked into. They are then eight trains short for the morning peak - not an insignificant amount at all - and that is just on day one.
I don't think it is worth squeezing the service further, I don't think it is worth the risk of cancellations spiralling further out of control, and I don't think it will be worth it for the staff on the line who are already overworked and will inevitably (even if the blame is 'shifted' through advertising!) face more abuse as the service becomes less and less reliable.
Consider the situation at the start of play if they discover five trains have been tagged overnight, that's then five trains out of service, which then have to be cleaned instead of the three train faults from yesterday being looked into. They are then eight trains short for the morning peak - not an insignificant amount at all - and that is just on day one.
I don't think it is worth squeezing the service further, I don't think it is worth the risk of cancellations spiralling further out of control, and I don't think it will be worth it for the staff on the line who are already overworked and will inevitably (even if the blame is 'shifted' through advertising!) face more abuse as the service becomes less and less reliable.
The problem is with this logic though that it fails to take into account that trains cannot be run in service for safety reasons (something to do with evacuation protocols) when graffiti covers the windows, which is starting to happen. So you either do it earlier and try and nip it in the bud, or you run them like now and then have to take them out of service anyway.
Maybe tfl should buy more stock than they need or plan in excess. I know it seems like a waste of money but times like this it would probably help. I’m no money expert though.
Yeah it has less graffiti now probably however still has worse crime than the tube, I’m just relying on news clips not statistics. The stations probably need better care but I think this is more of the 24/7 network nature that creates certain issues.
southern442
Established Member
This is exactly the problem - there is no money. Cuts have created at the present situation an opportunity cost between trains that look nice and trains that actually work. (Not to say that both cannot be achieved, look at some other lines - but with the situations on the central and bakerloo, that is where we find ourselves presently). If TfL had adequate funding for both of these lines, new rolling stock would have already been ordered.
Rather than but extra new trains, it would be far cheaper to get some additional security staff and prosecute scrotes who are found vandalising trains. That would soon put a stop to it.
True but extra trains allow a graffiti train to be put out of service without service disruption. I’ve seen video where graffiti can happen at a train platform but hidden from station cctv.
bluegoblin7
Established Member
How much do you think new trains cost?!
Clueless.
Clueless.
I just meant have a higher amount of trains than trains needed for regular service
bluegoblin7
Established Member
And you’re paying the significantly higher fares needed to fund those additional trains, expanded depot space and the graffiti cleaning teams that *checks notes* can’t be paid for at the moment?
Quite. Not just he capital cost of the trains, but somewhere to keep them, more maintenance, higher refurb costs etc etc etc.
Much cheaper to stop scrotes vandalising them on the first place. But if there isn't enough money to do that there definitely isn't enough to buy spare trains and let them get vandalised anyway.
I was thinking they last 40 years so in the long term is it much more expensive? The graffiti team can actually remain the same size as there are non graffiti spare trains to use if a train is graffitied. So maybe more time to clean graffiti off trains.
Of course it is.
Do you have a spare car at home, just in case? Even if you don't drive it you need to insure it, store it somewhere, maintain it etc etc etc.
I’m sure middle class people do.
In the days of PPP yes it would have been considered commercially sensible to have a few more spares when there were "fines" for non availability of stock (and some of the quantities of stock ordered in that era may reflect this?).
Just like car leasing companies that have pool cars to provide cover to car fleets (for breakdowns or routine maintenance)
MaidaVale
Member
In addition to funding issues when acquiring new fleets full stop, how would you propose this problem is solved with existing fleets that aren't planned for replacement anyway within the next few years?
Sure, the solution of "have more trains than needed" may work on paper for the 24 stock fleet which are currently in production, but what about lines like the Victoria, Northern and Jubilee where the stock has been out of production for over 15 years (or 20 in the case of the 96s and approaching 30 for the 95s) yet aren't earmarked for replacement any time soon? Do you expect Alstom to re-start production of obsolete, 20-30 year old train designs just for a few extra units to handle graffiti?
This isn't even taking into account the extra depot space required. Plus, if a bunch of additional trains are included within an order, why not just use them to increase capacity where line infrastructure allows rather than just keeping them as "just in case" graffiti spares.
boiledbeans2
Member
If TfL have the money, a more realistic option would be to get long-term stopped trains back into service.
southern442
Established Member
Judging by the amount of graffiti, I would perhaps suggest that they don't have the money...