14:52

Welcome to Railway Forum!
Welcome!

Thank you for finding your way to Railway Forum, a dedicated community for railway and train enthusiasts. There's a variety of forums, a wonderful gallery, and what's more, we are absolutely FREE. You are very welcome to join, take part in the discussion, and post your pictures!

Click here to go to the forums home page and find out more.
Click here to join.


Go Back   Railway Forum > General Railway Discussion > Passenger Operations and Observations

Double-Decker Trains

Reply
 
Thread Tools
  #1  
Old 13th July 2006, 23:23
patlucas's Avatar
patlucas patlucas is offline  
Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Bedford, UK
Posts: 18
Double-Decker Trains

Hi

I have been living in the UK for 20 years or so. Before that, I was living in France where double-deker trains have been a common site for a long time. I cannot understand why, here in the UK, they have failed to appear especially around London where over-crowding is a big problem. London is much bigger than Paris and has many more comuters; yet, Paris has had double-decker trains for a long time. Berlin has them too and so does Warsaw. So why not London? I would be very happy to know what others have to say about this. It just doesn't make sense to me!

Regards

Patrick


Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 14th July 2006, 09:51
swisstrains's Avatar
swisstrains swisstrains is offline  
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: England
Posts: 4,149
Images: 538
Hello Patrick and welcome to the forum.
The Southern Region had a few double-decker trains in the 50's and 60's but they were very cramped due to the restrictive British loading gauge. Modern double-decker trains have been talked about but the cost of altering bridges and tunnels would be very high.
John.
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 14th July 2006, 12:32
patlucas's Avatar
patlucas patlucas is offline  
Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Bedford, UK
Posts: 18
To run high-speed trains in the UK, they will need to make the line straighter as the current curves are too sharp for high-speed. By the way, all curves on the French LGV's (Ligne Grande Vitesse) have a 15km radius to allow for high-speed.
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old 14th July 2006, 14:23
pavorossi pavorossi is offline  
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Lancashire
Posts: 1,651
Images: 69
The British double decker trains that have alredy been mentioned where designed by Bullied. I've heard that if you sat downstairs you could smell the feet off the people upstairs, but I don't know how true that is.
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 14th July 2006, 15:02
patlucas's Avatar
patlucas patlucas is offline  
Member
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Bedford, UK
Posts: 18
These trains must have looked very strange since bridges in the UK are so low. Are there any pictures that I could have a look at?
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old 14th July 2006, 20:52
John H-T's Avatar
John H-T John H-T is offline
Station Manager
 
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Derbyshire
Posts: 6,351
Images: 528
I think a couple of coaches have been preserved. There was an article in one of the magazines recently but I can't remember which. Will do some research unless someone else comes up with the info!
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old 14th July 2006, 22:04
DSY011's Avatar
DSY011 DSY011 is offline  
Station Manager
 
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: BRISTOL U.K.
Posts: 4,464
Images: 547
Financial Times: March 15 2006
http://www.rmtbristolrail.org.uk/arc...00001637.shtml
Have a look at this site for some info on Double Decker trains.
Syd
Reply With Quote
  #8  
Old 14th July 2006, 22:28
Trev's Avatar
Trev Trev is offline  
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Kingston-upon-Hull
Posts: 1,443
Images: 3
Some photos of the 4 DD EMU's here.

http://www.zenadsl5777.zen.co.uk/Railpix/
Reply With Quote
  #9  
Old 14th July 2006, 22:37
swisstrains's Avatar
swisstrains swisstrains is offline  
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: England
Posts: 4,149
Images: 538
Quote:
Originally Posted by pavorossi
I've heard that if you sat downstairs you could smell the feet off the people upstairs, but I don't know how true that is.
It could have been worse
Reply With Quote
  #10  
Old 15th July 2006, 21:19
Shed Cat's Avatar
Shed Cat Shed Cat is offline
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: Southern UK
Posts: 1,100
Images: 46
This was another one of Bulleid's ideas that need to be put into context.

Post War, the Southern was facing sudden critical overcrowding and they had worked out the expense of introducing 10-coach trains. This would have involved extending platforms with consequent major changes in track layouts and signalling. It was going to cost 10's of millions of pounds at 1948 prices, and take years to implement. (= Billions in today's prices??)

So the Double Decker was exactly the right technical solution on paper for speed of introduction and economy. But it didn’t work for many well documented reasons. At least he didn’t build 100s of them before discovering the problem.

This is what fascinates me about Bulleid. So many of his ideas were absolutely right on paper, but couldn’t quite be delivered, so the idea ended up as failures.
Reply With Quote
Reply


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is Off
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump


All times are GMT +1. The time now is 14:52.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.