Steam on the Underground

[anonymous-user]

Yep, your eyes do not deceive you. Steam is returning to London Undergound.
As part of the 150th anniversary celebrations of the first underground railway service between Paddington and Farringdon in 1863, Met Loco No1 will be hauling a number of heritage specials on the Met Line, starting (IIRC) on January 13th...
Just don't wear your cricket whites...

[DJFish]

Presumably they'll have to disable the smoke alarms?

[anonymous-user]

DJFish said:

Presumably they'll have to disable the smoke alarms?

And lots more besides. Other challenges have included the crews not being able to see signals and the CCTV cameras fogging up. All good fun.
The image is from the test runs in early December (without passengers)

ETA: Before anyone jumps up and down, although the traditional smoke/heat detectors are being worked round, other measures will be in place to ensure fire safety isn't compromised.

Edited by anonymous-user on Wednesday 2nd January 13:39

[anonymous-user]

Would be cleaner to use electric water heaters in the boilers, powered off the 3rd rail.......... ;-)

[anonymous-user]

Max_Torque said:

Would be cleaner to use electric water heaters in the boilers, powered off the 3rd rail.......... ;-)

...or 4th?

[mcdjl]

No-one liked it when i said it!
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

Does anyone know if spectators will be allowed on the platforms- the tickets having sold out already at over £80!

[mebe]

Now that, is somewhat cool. Hats off to those involved.

[davepoth]

mebe said:

Now that, is somewhat cool. Hats off to those involved.

Best to keep your hat on unless you want your hair to get covered in soot.

[anonymous-user]

mcdjl said:

No-one liked it when i said it!
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

Does anyone know if spectators will be allowed on the platforms- the tickets having sold out already at over £80!

Not heard anything to say you can't.

[David87]

Awesome! That's brilliant.

[W124Bob]

Steam finished on the underground in 1971, in the mid 60's LU bought 11 ex GWR pannier tanks from BR putting them into service at Neasden and Lillie Bridge.They were used on engineers trains and a rubbish train.Of the 11 6 went into presevation,occasionally one is repainted in the LU maroon livery.This is the final run at the Barbican in '71.

[Yertis]

W124Bob said:

Steam finished on the underground in 1971, in the mid 60's LU bought 11 ex GWR pannier tanks from BR putting them into service at Neasden and Lillie Bridge.They were used on engineers trains and a rubbish train.Of the 11 6 went into presevation,occasionally one is repainted in the LU maroon livery.This is the final run at the Barbican in '71.

You'd think they would have cleaned that up for the last run, it's filthy.

[ninja-lewis]

mcdjl said:

No-one liked it when i said it!
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

Does anyone know if spectators will be allowed on the platforms- the tickets having sold out already at over £80!

Lots of unofficial information here about spectating.

http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2013/01/07/best-pl...

[1e35]

Crossflow Kid said:

Max_Torque said:

Would be cleaner to use electric water heaters in the boilers, powered off the 3rd rail.......... ;-)

...or 4th?

Been done before : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric-steam_locomo...

[anonymous-user]

Another test run tonight. Just leaving Chiswick now.
And yep, spectators can watch from the platforms (assuming you can squeeze between all the hard core spotters)

[Justin Cyder]

It must have been pretty miserable to travel on the tube in the early days. When the first line opened in 1863, Palmerston declined his invitation saying that at the age of 78, he'd be better off spending as much time above ground as possible.

[CDP]

Crossflow Kid said:

Yep, your eyes do not deceive you. Steam is returning to London Undergound.
As part of the 150th anniversary celebrations of the first underground railway service between Paddington and Farringdon in 1863, Met Loco No1 will be hauling a number of heritage specials on the Met Line, starting (IIRC) on January 13th...
Just don't wear your cricket whites...

Spectacular and unpleasant at the same time

[Dogwatch]

Justin Cyder said:

It must have been pretty miserable to travel on the tube in the early days. When the first line opened in 1863, Palmerston declined his invitation saying that at the age of 78, he'd be better off spending as much time above ground as possible.

It was bad enough on BR when they were running steam on scheduled services - and that was in the open air (apart from tunnels)!

[Sway]

I'm in town next week, would love to go and have a gander, any timetable available?

Really hoping there's a service at a suitable time for an extended lunch hour...

Got colleagues coming over from Zurich so may have to drag them along without letting on why!

[CDP]

Sway said:

Got colleagues coming over from Zurich so may have to drag them along without letting on why!

Just tell them it's the normal service and about time the trains were updated.