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London Underground C69/C77 Stock: The final months (images/videos)


superdrive1

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When you see a post like this in here you usually assume it's going to be a mixture of C Stock photos and videos from myself, indeed I expected that to be the case myself, but alas that sadly isn't the case, and here is why.

 

As has been previously noted, Tuesday 3rd June was intended to be the final day of passenger C Stock operations, and indeed it was, however the final running day was to come to a very abrupt and unplanned end. Unfortunately the previous day (Monday 2nd June) saw a substantial power failure at Earl's Court virtually destroy timetabled services across the District, Circle, Hammersmith & City, Metropolitan and Piccadilly lines, this is turn meant that by the end of Monday's traffic hours, most trains on those lines were displaced from their planned stabling points ready for Tuesday's service.

 

When service on Tuesday began, as expected the final C Stock formed of set 5592/5517/5533 picked up District Line working 074 from start of service and went to work on the Wimbledon branch, supposedly until 1340. This proved to not be the case sadly, as the set was withdrawn 4 hours early at 0940, long before myself and many other C Stock fans could reach the capital to ride the train.

 

The reasons as to why the set was withdrawn so soon are somewhat complicated, in short we believe the train was withdrawn early because of train mileage issues found out only once the set was well into traffic (once sets hit a certain mileage quota, they were withdrawn and scrapped). We also suspect it wasn't intended for this to happen, but that the previous day's issues just caused the wrong C Stock to end up in position for the final service.

 

It's disappointing what happened for all of us, but at the end of the day that's life. All focus now turns to the last chance we shall get to see a C Stock in action, June 29th. We are ready.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Warning: Substantial amount of items

 

Well, it's happened. The final C Stock in service ran yesterday (Sunday 29th June) as the 'C Stock Farewell Tour' or 'C Stock Classic Tour' depending on who you ask.

 

The set given the honour of working this historic final service was 5578/5531/5721 (5592/5517/5533, the other remaining set stayed in Hammersmith Depot, probably for the better considering the issues last time, see previous post) and the tour took in all of the usual C Stock haunts. Starting at Moorgate at 0955, the tour visited Wimbledon via Edgware Road to cover it's District line home, thence on to Barking via Edgware Road and Liverpool Street covering the H&C line before finally (after an hour's lunch break) continuing from Barking back into London for one final, and full anticlockwise lap of the Circle Line before diverting off to Hammersmith, the final stop.

 

For those chasing it around (like myself and other groups of us) we were treated to sights of old style destination blinds on the C Stock as it moved around the system, often showing destinations of places it wasn't stopping at! (Addison Road/Kensington Olympia, Liverpool Street and Putney Bridge witnessed) Another oddity noticed was at Hammersmith, where blinds displayed 'Rotherham via Northwood' as the destination. This was presumably a bit of an in-joke as that routing is the one that would send the train to the scrapyard! (via rail to Northwood on the Metropolitan line then via road to Booths of Rotherham for scrapping)

 

The final send-off was a pretty impressive sight, with a substantial gathering of enthusiasts on the platforms to see the train back into the depot, they even managed to place a few railway detonators down onto the tracks so the C Stock really could go out with a bang!

 

Some video clips and photos of the day are below, Rust in Peace my friends

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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