that remains to be seen - we can assume so but until it happens we will never know

first like of your like!

but those were not tube trains - they travelled through 'cut and cover' tunnels just below the road surface - tube trains travel through drilled or dug out circular tunnels located deep underground

@@CitytransportInfoplus u got a good point

for the full load they can use sandbags on the seats!

not, nowadays its all history - what you see here was a demonstration of the system and filmed at a living museum railway

This system is relatively quick, easy and cheap to install. New electric rail installations are now illegal (seen as too dangerous). Overhead wiring is expensive, especially as the Office of Road and Rail (ORR - who set safety rules & regulations) require bridges over the railway to be rebuilt so as to create an air space around the overhead wires suitable for larger European trains rather than British trains. Their heavy-handed attitude which ignored many years of proven safe air-gap dimensions (here in the UK) dating back to railway electrification by BR in the 1950s / 1960s caused the cost of the GW electrification scheme to rise further than they should have. Media reports I read said that the ORR actually forced the expensive rebuilding of bridges that were already 'within scope' according to British practice elsewhere in the UK

I suppose they need these cameras

@@CitytransportInfoplus platform staff and/or guards are better though :)

a metal device had been placed on one of the rails to prevent the train from rolling forwards beyond this location ... what they were doing was removing this metal device, so that part of the train could roll downhill.

yes, that is very possible - it all depends on the decisions made by the civil servants who run our nationalised railways

⁠Indeed

thank you - this was filmed earlier this month - 3rd June 2024

@@CitytransportInfoplus Ah ok! Thx! You are welcome! 😊🙂

sorry but I never got to find out the exact location of the speakers, but I suspect that for best audio-ability there would be several speakers scattered about where the people watching this were standing

@@CitytransportInfoplus hey thanks for the info. I've heard that both the Royal and Australian clock don't function anymore but only chime due to a fault. Is this correct?

yes, the same type of train - former London Underground District line D stock

sorry but I did not get to see inside at that part of the trains, so have no idea.

handrails are often coloured yellow because its a colour which most people can see, even if they are colour blind but I never quite understood the blue colour ... but yes, the refurb colours are better

yes, it needs a telephoto lens to fully appreciate this - almost certainly its caused by the need to go over the shuttle service track

@@CitytransportInfoplus I'm sure you're right. Normally they avoid a downhill slope into a platform where they can (it increases the risk of a train overshooting the platform and consequent delays while the operator asks permission from the controller to back up), but I guess they didn't have much choice here.

They need to electrify the East-West route with OHLE asap.

They need to electrify the East-West route with OHLE asap.

Is the REM the new service in Montreal, Caanada? In the winter here we sometimes have snow and ice and it has happened that the trains become stranded because of snow / ice on the electric rails, with passengers then self-evacuating (ie :not waiting to be rescued - its illegal but they do it anyway) and walking along the tracks, even though touching the live rail will likely kill them

If they had a rolling programme of electrification gradually munching its way through the network, you are absolutely right. Isn't it obvious that the whole network will end up electrified? But they insist on a stop-start regime each time starting from scratch and reinventing the wheel which costs the taxpayer and the passengers quite unnecessary £ MILLIONS.

@@1258-Eckhart Its as if the decision makers have a mandate to spend as much money s is humanly possible. With zero accountability.

Storage of trains and even whole train-classes has become a privatisation thing. In BR days, all the trains worked until retirement.

Only part of the D stock fleet was sold to Vivarail. As far as I'm aware, all of the UNDM (uncoupling non-driving motor cars) were scrapped. This amounts to almost a third of the fleet.

@@CitytransportInfoplus Vivrail no longer exists. The program is entirely GWR.

But with actual charge management hardware that the scooters never had installed… That stops the battery overheating…

We need a rolling program of electrification, with stuff like this filling in the gaps until the more important places are all electrified and branch lines can be done.

I think it's a Tory obsession, preservation of green belt, etc.

They are basically built ground up and the GWR livery is good at hiding age

they'll probably paint over it cause they think it's a DMU

But a splashy new Pollack paint job would probably look good on these!

We know safety is a major concern, but whenever regulatory bodies scent the opportunity to make a mountain out of any task they go to it with gusto. Introduction of new Stadler trains delayed by three years while rail inspectorate found every single issue under the sun to raise concerns about and then some. Last year trains from Kings Cross were halted because of “cracking” in the train chassis. Only of course the only “cracking” was in the imagination of the inspectors.

I think that the train is crewed by people from a different part of the railway industry - GWR train drivers have probably not even been trained to drive these. This alone would be enough to prevent passengers from being carried on this train - except perhaps as part of a special charter

Re: "The testing programs seem to take forever and a day." It didn't help that the British Government allowed Vivarail to go into administration, instead of nationalising the company and renaming it "British Rail Engineering".

@@Denis.Collins The Ladbrook Grove Disaster killed 31 passengers and injured another 417. There are no short cuts to safety. It's not pesky red tape. It stops people from getting killed. We are talking of large amounts of energy being rapidly pumped into batteries. That's something that has not been done before. It's probably safe, but people need to do lots of testing to make sure the batteries don't start to heat up and catch fire. The same sort of testing was done with Crossrail. The passengers who are going to be traveling on these trains deserve nothing less than a full test.

Reading, afaik. The battery packs they’re fitted with can hold enough charge to comfortably take it the distance between Reading and West Ealing at the start & end of the day

There was a time when the GWR did indeed do things its way - irrespective of what other railways did. Nowadays however everything is very heavily controlled by London civil servants so there is less scope for the individual train operating companies to make any decisions of their own.

We don’t want 710s on this line way too long to fit at all stops on the line maybe 3 car 378s instead or LU

@@SpongeBob2010-mw9xf Nothing stopping the platforms from being extended to allow for 4-Car Class 710s (which are only 34 meters longer than the units currently on trial) though.

@@MrSmith1984 If that is done this where is the 230s going to? Plus I Prefer the 230s Vs the 710s bc the 230s are like the D stock but Modded to go on railway line outside the 4th rail and they sound better like the D stock wish they did Modify the A and C stock trains before they were scrapped.

@@SpongeBob2010-mw9xf Well, they can either be converted to Class 484's (& sent to the Island Line) or be withdrawn altogether (they are 45 years old at this point). And regardless, the 710s are more suitable stock for this line than the 230s.

@@MrSmith1984 Maybe LO should get the 319s to operate on this line instead of the 710s so that the DC line gets more trains and how can the 710s get to it anyways?

I asked that question to one of the train drivers. He thought that an enthusiasts special might happen, but did not know when - if at all - this train will enter full passenger service.

As Ealing Broadway has better interchange options it would be better for the passengers if the shuttle trains returned to it, but now that a brand new dedicated bay platform has been built at West Ealing returning to Ealing Broadway seems unlikely.

@@CitytransportInfopluswell at least they reunited with the central line at Greenford, good to see the D and 1992 stock back together

Yes, that can happen, especially where the innovation comes from a start-up business which is not part of an established business. But please remember, Vivarail had issues with the diesel engine packs, otherwise things might have been different. Ideally if this trial is successful the TfW 230's will be converted to pure battery operation, perhaps with top-up charges en-route as well as at the termini.

I share your hopes, this would indeed be an excellent outcome.

It might have crossed some people's minds that these would end up on the Isle of Wight, especially as other UndergrounD trains were being used there. However, neither I nor anyone else would have thought that these trains would have been converted to battery power and given second lives on branch lines. As for making videos and placing them on RU-vid, back in the early 1990s we did not even have the Internet, so the concept of RU-vid would have been in the realms of Sci-fi. But we did have companies like Blockbuster who hired out video films and there were companies like Online Video making / selling videos of Underground trains.

Conductor rail electrification is forbidden to create. The only lines that get to have it are those that already had it.

That would be more expensive and disruptive. Besdies this is more of a proof of concept type thing.

The ORR/Network Rail had banned any forms of railway lines built/converted with third/fourth rail electrification since i believe 2016/2017 without any kind of protection which would be "costly" hence the battery trains came into existence

Let's face it, that 3rd rail technology is fit for the museum. Like the steam trains before it, it has become expensive to operate because of energy transmission losses, and the obvious safety issue (mistaken approach) can't be eliminated.