Rail Photo of the Month: April 2024

Posted on April 1, 2024 by Oren

Metro-Cammell Glasgow Underground Stock 118

Location: Cowcaddens Station, Glasgow, Scotland
Operator of Vehicle: Strathclyde Partnership for Transport
Date of Photo: August 2, 2005

A recent video by railfan and videographer extraordinaire Geoff Marshall about the new Glasgow Subway rolling stock caught my attention. The third generation of rolling stock for this unique subway system is in the process of being introduced, which means that the second generation stock that has been in service since 1980 will be retired soon. This second generation stock is what I rode when I visited Glasgow for a day in the summer of 2005, so it seemed fitting to feature the outgoing rolling stock as a Photo of the Month.

The Glasgow Subway opened on December 14, 1896, making it the third oldest subway in Europe (only London and Budapest are older). However, it does have the distinction of being the first mass transit system in the world to be known as a subway. The trains have an uncommon gauge of 4 feet, making the trains narrower than those on the deep level tube lines of the London Underground. The Glasgow Subway also has the distinction of having never been expanded since it opened, it serves the exact same 15 stations and 6.5 miles (10.5 kilometers) of track that it has been serving for over 127 since opening.

With the arrival of the third generation rolling stock, it is expected that the second generation stock will be phased out over the course of 2024. The third generation of stock is designed to be converted to driverless operation and will have full front views for passengers, just like the Docklands Light Railway, once “ZPTO” begins. There are also plans to install platform screen doors in conjunction with the transition to driverless operation. Geoff Marshall covers these topics and more in his video, which can be seen here.

Have you been on the Glasgow Subway?

For more photos of the Glasgow Subway, please click here.

Rail Photo of the Month: July 2023

Posted on July 1, 2023 by Oren

1973 Stock 126

Arnos Grove Station, London, England
Operator of Vehicle: Transport for London
Date of Photo: May 21, 2008

This month, the London Transport Museum is celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Piccadilly Line extension to Cockfosters. In 1932, the line was extended from Finsbury Park to Arnos Grove. Then on March 13, 1933 the line was extended to Oakfields and again on July 31, 1933 to Cockfosters, which remains the terminal today. To mark this occasion, the London Transport Museum is running a special fantrip using its 1938 rolling stock on Sunday, July 9. I haven’t been in London when any of these special types of events put on my the museum have occurred, but from what I see on social media, they look to be great. As it is, the museum itself is a must see attraction for any transit fan visiting London.

The photo featured here is of the 1973 Stock that currently operates on the Piccadilly Line at the Arnos Grove station. The 1973 Stock is among the oldest rolling stock in use on a transit system in Britain but TfL has plans for new deep tube stock that may begin operating as soon as 2025.

For more photos of the 1973 Stock, please click here.

Bus Photo of the Month: May 2021

Posted on May 2, 2021 by Oren

Routemaster

Location: Trafalgar Square, London, England
Operator of Vehicle: First London under contract to Transport for London
Date of Photo: May 21, 2008

When you think of London transport, the iconic image of a red, double-decker bus comes to mind. For many years, these red double decker buses were a mainstay on the streets of London. Over 2,900 Routemaster buses were constructed, and many are still in existence today. However, most of them have not seen revenue service since 2005. In that year, the last Routemasters were retired due to their lack of accessibility. A “heritage service” was established on two routes to keep about 20 Routemasters in regular service. These short turns of regular routes ran through Central London and were largely used by tourists. One of these routes was discontinued in 2014, but the other continued to operate. In 2019, the remaining heritage route was cut back to operate on weekends and bank holidays only between Easter and the end of September. Service did not operate in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and last month, it was announced that the service will not resume as the tender has expired and it was not put up for renewal.

I have been to London twice and consider myself fortunate to have had the opportunity to ride on the original Routemasters, both in regular service in 2003 and also on one of the heritage services in 2008. I have yet to visit London since the “New Routemasters” entered service in 2012, but look forward to experiencing a low-floor, handicapped accessible Routemaster the next time I find myself there,

For more photos of London’s Routemaster buses, please click here.

Oren’s Reading List: Riding an entire system in a day

Posted on May 4, 2018 by Oren

The Vancouver Sun reports that today, a man named Stephen Quinlan intends to ride the entire Vancouver SkyTrain system in about 3 hours, in order to set the Guinness World Record for achieving the feat. You can read about his preparations here. I made no effort to set a record while doing so, but I did ride the entire Skytrain in a single day on August 7, 2007, back when it only had two lines and fewer stations. It isn’t the first system I rode in an entire day, either. The largest system I rode in a single day is the Washington, DC Metrorail (in 2002, when it only had 83 stations), but I have also explored the entire TTC Subway (2007), San Juan Tren Urbano (2016), Glasgow Underground (2005), Rome Metro (2008), Jerusalem Light Rail (on opening day in 2011) and Haifa Carmelit (2007) in a single day, and did the Tren Urbano, Jerusalem Light Rail, and Carmelit on a single fare. Needless to say, it is a much easier feat to achieve on a smaller system such as Haifa’s (the smallest subway in the world) as opposed to a city such as London or New York, but that is to be expected.

Have you ever tried to ride an entire system in one day? Were you successful? Were you trying to set any records? Feel free to post your answers in the comments below!

Oren’s Reading List is an occasional feature on The Travelogue in which I share articles that I’ve read that might also be of interest to the readers of this website.

Oren’s Reading List: How the London Tube Lines Got Their Names

Posted on January 9, 2017 by Oren

If you’ve been to Washington or Chicago, you know that subway lines are named for colors. If you’ve been to New York City or Paris, you know that trains are referred to by a number of letter. Around the entire world, identifying subway lines by color, number, or letter is common. But in London, all the Tube lines have names. Did you ever wonder where those names come from? This article from Londonist reveals all. While some names are portmanteaus of the destinations they serve (i.e. Bakerloo), others have more complex histories.

Oren’s Reading List is an occasional feature on The Travelogue in which I share articles that I’ve read that might also be of interest to the readers of this website.

London U-Bahn Map

Posted on September 13, 2016 by Oren

Did you ever expect to see the London Underground or “The Tube” referred to as the U-Bahn? U-Bahn is the German term for subway and is used in just about each German city that has an underground rail network. Yesterday, I shared a 1973 London Underground map with you. Today, I’m sharing another London Underground map, except this one is from 1975 and printed in German for the benefit of German speaking tourists. I don’t speak or read German aside from knowing a few select words, but my guess is that the texts on this map are just straight translations from the standard English language that would be used to German. It is certainly an interesting addition to my collection as I don’t think I’ve ever seen a London Underground map in a language other than English.

Here are the scans of the map. You can click on each image to make it larger and see it at full size.

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