A few historical questions about the Circle Line

[DavidB-AU]

The Inner Circle was nominally complete in 1884. To say the Met and the District both operated the service is a bit of a misnomer - they were fierce rivals and regularly disrupted each other out of spite, e.g. chaining rollingstock to the track. (I could go on about this but Jago Hazzard has many more examples in his videos.)

 

They were both forced by Act of Parliament to operate the line but in a completely ridiculous way. The Met provided the clockwise service and the District provided the anti-clockwise service. If you bought a District ticket from, say, Paddington to Baker Street you had to go the long way around!

[Lord of Narnia]

7 hours ago, roythebus1 said:

SJP is a sub-surface station so there's no escalators from the platforms to street level. 

 

On the later O/P/Q stock it was not possible, as others have said, to lift the seats. Uner them was a plethora of isolating cocks, the flap with the star hid the brake release valve (the star is still used on main line trains), and "heaters". Lots of things tht worked on 650 volts that you really wanted to go near.

 

If the Circle train was a District train, the F stock with the flat front and clerestory roof, later to become Q23, had a separate guard's compartment that kids could hide in. This was accessible from the passenger saloon and was shut off when occupied by the guard by putting a bar across the gap that had GUARD ONLY on it. I know what they were like, I worked on them as a guard in 1970 and 1971 when they were withdrawn. The lights would go dim when the train started and would go out when the train went over gaps in the current rails.

The F stock and Q23 stock were different trains. The F stock, or 1920s stock had Oval windows at all ends and three sets of double doors. They had elliptical roofs and slightly raked sides.

 

The G/Q23 trains that you worked on had a metal screen between the saloon and guard area so was hidden from view. I’ve heard stories that the guards used to enjoy this area as they could have a cheeky smoke there and not be bothered! 

[Ray H]

 

8 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

That must have been where the late Norman Eagles of Sherwood Section fame worked.

 

Indeed it was. One of my office colleagues was originally married to his secretary but I didn't appreciate then exactly who he was so I never managed to wrangle an invite.

Edited August 3, 2023 by Ray H

[Nearholmer]

The bus scheduling team, or perhaps the public carriage office, left an interesting relic, which used to float around between meeting rooms, owned by nobody, but sort of cared for by everybody: a huge leather-bound ledger, in which was recorded every road traffic accident involving a ‘bus, going back to the dawn of ‘buses. It had entries in beautiful copperplate script summarising accidents to horse ‘buses on the first few pages, then went on through all sorts of motor ‘buses before petering out half way through the ledger at some date in the 1959s iirc. I wonder where it is now?

 

As regards model railway connections, C J Freezer’s son worked at 55BY, and on real railway connections, one of O V S Bulleid’s grandsons was a management trainee there for a while.

 

 

Edited August 3, 2023 by Nearholmer

[SRman]

9 hours ago, roythebus1 said:

SJP is a sub-surface station so there's no escalators from the platforms to street level. 

 

On the later O/P/Q stock it was not possible, as others have said, to lift the seats. Uner them was a plethora of isolating cocks, the flap with the star hid the brake release valve (the star is still used on main line trains), and "heaters". Lots of things tht worked on 650 volts that you really wanted to go near.

 

If the Circle train was a District train, the F stock with the flat front and clerestory roof, later to become Q23, had a separate guard's compartment that kids could hide in. This was accessible from the passenger saloon and was shut off when occupied by the guard by putting a bar across the gap that had GUARD ONLY on it. I know what they were like, I worked on them as a guard in 1970 and 1971 when they were withdrawn. The lights would go dim when the train started and would go out when the train went over gaps in the current rails.

I know you have already been corrected on this, but I can show models of 1920 F stock and the 1923 Q23 type here (no problems with copyright on my own photos!!).
 

F Stock:




G/Q23 Stock (sorry, it's slightly blurred, but it shows well enough the shape) - followed by a Q38 flare-sided car:

[Ray H]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

As regards model railway connections, C J Freezer’s son worked at 55BY, . . . . . 

 

Indeed he did and I was his manager for a significant part of that time. 😒

[roythebus1]

My mistake with F stock and G stock!F stock, also known as "tanks" by the crews because of their weight and reputed speed, with oval cab windows.

 

It was unusual to use Q stock on the circle services. The guard's control equipment was powered by batteries with discharged when the guard's control key livened up his panel. There was enough reserve there for about 4 hours work if I remember correctly. so after 4 circles, the battery would go flat! When the crew changed ends, when the motorman put his control key in, the guard's batteries would charge up. they were wired in series with the cab light and marker lights across the 650v supply! Everything else on Q stock worked on line volts IIRC.

 

Norman Eagles was a member of The Model Railway Club in London and used to do a transport film show twice a year. He was also the official London Transport club steward, in the days when the old companies had their own "stewards". There was never a British Railways steward!

 

Cyril Freezer's son Nick worked with me for years on the MRC's New Annington layout in the late 1970s to late 1980s as well as his full-time job with LT!

 

I've shared the news of the Q stock project to the District Dave website as well as the FB District Line Past and Present group where it will hopefully get some more interest. Already someone asking if it will be available in7mm/ft.

[GoingUnderground]

The Circle line was referred to as the Inner Circle, and was a "route" not a line in its own right during WW2. I have an "Inner Circle" destination plate with the normal white on black lettering, the reverse shows "Sth Ken". My parents came to London in 1946 after WW2 and always called it the Inner Circle, much to my annoyance as by 1960 when I stated using the Underground to go to school it was just called Circle. There was once a Middle Circle (Moorgate to Mansion House via Addison Road (Olympia) and also an Outer Circle (Broad St to Victoria following the same route as today's Overground "circle" anticlockwise between Hoxton and Clapham Jcn) but theses were "C" shaped routes. and I believe that both had finished before 1910. However, There is an undated picture (plate 126) on page 136 of J Graeme Bruce's "Steam to Silver" showing  O or P stock at South Kensington with the destination plate showing "Inner Circle" and the line as "Metropolitan". The same picture, this time credited as being 1958, also appears on page 59 of Desmond Croome's "The Circle Line" and as the caption in this latter book says the name "...survives half a century after it became irrelevant".  At the time that O and P stocks were introduced, the late 1930s, the chord between the Hammersmith branch of the Met and the West London Railway was still intact and used for an Edgware Road-Addison Road shuttle service. So a Middle Circle service could have been reintroduced if there had been the desire so to do. That might be why the Inner Circle name persisted. The chord was closed in 1940 following bomb damage and was never repaired.

 

There is also a picture dated 1948 on page 57 of Desmond Croome's "The Circle Line" showing pre-O/P Metropolitan stock at Moorgate with the older style Metropolitan black on white destination board showing "Inner Circle" and the line as "Metropolitan".  The same book on page 61 also shows an example of O/P Stock with the Destination "Circle Line" and the line as "Circle Line" during the post-WW2 rerouteing of the line between Aldersgsate (nowadays Barbican) and Moorgate, the picture is undated but could be as late as the early 1960s. 

 

Q38 stock was structurally the same as O and P stock. There were two main differences. The first was in the electrics as Q38 was built to be electrically compatible with the older cars with which it ran, which made it incompatible with the O and P stock. The other difference was the couplings which had to be compatible with the older stock which I think used Ward type couplings. O and P had Wedgelock couplings which included the power and pneumatic connections, same as the '38 Tube Stock.

 

F Stock wasn't slow. J Graeme Bruce says in "Steam to Silver" that the nickname "tanks" had 2 possible origins. One was because they were mainly of all steel construction, whilst the other was because that were built shortly after the end of WW1 on factories that had been making parts for battle tanks. I'm old enough to remember travelling in them on the Uxbridge branch of the Met and they never struck me as being slow. Also they were incompatible with the stock that came before and after them, so always ran together.  Bruce also says that they had better acceleration than pre-existing District stock, with a maximum speed of 45mph. He adds that once i nservice they were found to work at speeds in excess of 45mph, and consequently the powers-that-be considered them overpowered and 15 of the motor cars were reduced to "single equipments" to slow them down.

 

As regards the transverse seat cushions on O and P stock I'm pretty certain that they could be removed as I have a vague memory of once seeing a guard come into a carriage and lift up a cushion and replace it. I cannot remember if he needed a "key" to release it from the base plinth. I don't know how much equipment was below them, I would have thought that they might have included the door operating mechanisms. I may well be wrong, but I think that locks to stop seat cushions above equipment being lifted up were only introduced as a result of the IRA bombing campaign in the 1970s. 

Edited August 7, 2023 by GoingUnderground

[GoingUnderground]

A Bit off=topic I know, but there is one other point on F Stock worth noting in relation to their speed. They had mainly longitudinal seats, the transverse seating being restricted to the bays at the end of each car. This gave them a much greater carrying capacity, the same as today's S Stock has a greater capacity than the A60 Stock with its all transverse seating. Thus F Stock gained a reputation for clearing crowds quickly from platforms especially at stations serving football grounds. The greater carrying capacity of such a seating arrangement would have required sufficiently powerful motors from new, all of which points towards rolling stock that would have been far from being slow in everyday operation.

 

I well remember just how spacious and roomy the F Stock felt compared to the O and P stock running on the Uxbridge branch in the early 1960s. It never really occurred to me at the time that the feeling of spaciousness was due to the mainly longitudinal seating arrangement. I just knew that they looked and felt very different to the more usual O/P Stock. I'd love to be able to go back to the early 1960s and ride on the F Stock again.

[GoingUnderground]

On 03/08/2023 at 03:06, DavidB-AU said:

.....They were both forced by Act of Parliament to operate the line but in a completely ridiculous way. The Met provided the clockwise service and the District provided the anti-clockwise service. If you bought a District ticket from, say, Paddington to Baker Street you had to go the long way around!

Really??????   When the District only owned the section between Mansion House and Sth Kensington????

 

The Met built and owned more of the Circle line than the District, getting as far as South Ken in the South West and Tower Hill in the South East, whilst the Tower Hill to Mansion House section was a joint enterprise between the Met and District companies. The District company only built the section between Sth Ken and Mansion House, and had its own platforms at High St Ken, Gloucester Road and Sth Ken.. There were still separate platforms for Circle and District trains at Sth Ken until 1969.

 

The Act of Parliament authorising the building of the section between Mansion House and Aldgate (it absorbed the Met's Aldgate to Tower Hill section) provided for the Met to operate the outer rail clockwise services and the District the anticlockwise inner rail services, but with the Met providing some trains (it might have been 5 trains) for the anticlockwise service as well in recognition of the higher proportion of the line constructed and controlled by the Met. I believe that revenue was shared in a similar proportion (55% Met to 45% District). So the idea of having to go the long way round is, at best, mischevious. The District did promote its own southern route between the City and Kensington as posters from the 1880s show. But I cannot recall reading that the company from whom a traveller purchased a ticket determined the direction of travel, especially when the Met also provided trains for the anticlockwise service. But I'd be interested to know the source of your information. 

 

The District was founded as a separate company as that allowed more capital to be raised than would have been possible if the Met had built the whole line. The original idea was that the Met would absorb/take over the District company in due course and initially the Met did operate all services for the District and did appont members to the District's board. But the District wanted independence and gave notice to terminate the operating agreement with the Met and take over the running of its services itself. The Met's representsatives resigned from the District Board, and the situation worsened when James Staats Forbes joined the District Board due to the personal animosity between him and Edward Watkin. Watkin was charrman of the South Eastern Railway whilst Forbes was chairman of the London Chatham and Dover and it was this mainline railway rivalry that probably didn't help when it came to co-operating in London.

Edited August 9, 2023 by GoingUnderground
To correct spelling/typo errors

[GoingUnderground]

On 29/07/2023 at 20:40, Cowley 47521 said:

Wonderful stuff @Nearholmer . That’s filled a lot of gaps in my knowledge in and the 1908 map is fascinating.

 

I’m assuming that the stock shown in the last photo would have been running on the line during 1941 rather than the O and P stock that I was thinking of? Any idea what it was called though?

 

Nick

According to Desmond Croome's book, during WW2, Circle line services used stock from before 1921 albeit rehabilitated in 1934. Pictures of Moorgate station in the post-war 1940s of trains with Inner Circle destination boards are of this older rolling stock.

 

O and P stock was in service before WW2, but operating Hammersmith branch services (O) and Uxbridge branch services (P). There is a picture of a wrecked flare sided train comprising a mix of O and P Stock cars at Moorgate destroyed on 29/12/40.  So, depending on the storyline you could still use O or P Stocks but would have to restrict the action to the Hammersmith branch services. I don't know if Uxbridge branch services ran beyond Baker St during WW2 to Moorgate and beyond. 

[roythebus1]

I believe they did until someone seriously amended the layout of Moorgate station!

[Tom Burnham]

On 07/08/2023 at 23:25, GoingUnderground said:

The Circle line was referred to as the Inner Circle, and was a "route" not a line in its own right during WW2. I have an "Inner Circle" destination plate with the normal white on black lettering, the reverse shows "Sth Ken". My parents came to London in 1946 after WW2 and always called it the Inner Circle, much to my annoyance as by 1960 when I stated using the Underground to go to school it was just called Circle. There was once a Middle Circle (Moorgate to Mansion House via Addison Road (Olympia) and also an Outer Circle (Broad St to Victoria following the same route as today's Overground "circle" anticlockwise between Hoxton and Clapham Jcn) but theses were "C" shaped routes. and I believe that both had finished before 1910. However, There is an undated picture (plate 126) on page 136 of J Graeme Bruce's "Steam to Silver" showing  O or P stock at South Kensington with the destination plate showing "Inner Circle" and the line as "Metropolitan". The same picture, this time credited as being 1958, also appears on page 59 of Desmond Croome's "The Circle Line" and as the caption in this latter book says the name "...survives half a century after it became irrelevant".  At the time that O and P stocks were introduced, the late 1930s, the chord between the Hammersmith branch of the Met and the West London Railway was still intact and used for an Edgware Road-Addison Road shuttle service. So a Middle Circle service could have been reintroduced if there had been the desire so to do. That might be why the Inner Circle name persisted. The chord was closed in 1940 following bomb damage and was never repaired.

The late Dr Hedley Clarke (expert on LT roundel station nameboards and on the North London Railway) claimed that his grandfather,  an L&NWR driver, drove on the Middle Circle.  Much more imaginative than the Flying Scotsman...

[Roger.s]

20 hours ago, Tom Burnham said:

The late Dr Hedley Clarke (expert on LT roundel station nameboards and on the North London Railway) claimed that his grandfather,  an L&NWR driver, drove on the Middle Circle.  Much more imaginative than the Flying Scotsman...

The Outer Circle ran from Broad Street to Mansion House not Victoria. On electrification the District Railway provided some electric locomotives to haul the LNWR trains over the electrified section  the loco change taking place at Earls Court. Due to shortage of paths to Mansion House the service was cut back to Earls Court from the end of 1908. The locos were later used for the Ealing- Southend through trains and other shorter workings over the Whitechapel & Bow Rly and  LT&SR  (then owned by the Midland.

The  Middle Circle which started in1872 by the GWR was cut back to Earlscourt in 1900 and further back to Addison Road in 1905.   The aformentioned Edgeware Rd/Addson Rd Shuttle was all that was left after further cutbackshad taker place.

Regards Roger

[Nearholmer]

The Outer Circle did run to Victoria for a few years, and the Midfle Circle was a GWR, not NLR/LNWR route.

 

This is pretty well researched: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Circle#/media/File%3AThe_Circle_Routes_of_Victorian_London.png

 

What I find remarkable is that my grandparents were always careful to talk about the Inner Circle, as opposed to any of the others, as late as the 1970s - the name lingered long after everyone had forgotten why the ‘inner’ was there!

 

 

[Tom Burnham]

Thanks both, my memory from some 30 years ago was evidently at fault, Outer Circle it would have been.  

[roythebus1]

The terms "inner rail" and "outer rail" still persist today, describing whether the train is going clockwise, outer rail, or anti-clockwise, inner rail.

[Nearholmer]

Ah, but that a different thing.

 

I remember being taught the acronyms WIND and OUSE, which all Underground people should know.

[roythebus1]

Having acquired a copy of the reprint of the District Railway history, the Metropolitan District Railway to give it its full title set up a large number of separate companies to build the various extensions. Some were wholly-owned subsidiaries, others were jointly owned and on completion of the works were absorbed into the MDR. For instance when extending from Whitechapel to Bow Road, the companies were jointly owned by the MDR and the LTSR, hence some of the rolling stock being owned by the LMS. I remember seeing these LMS ownership step plates on certain items of rolling stock, maybe O and P stock.

 

Also interesting is that during steam days when most trains terminated at Mansion House, the MDR managed to run 43 trains per hour, and that was using steam locos and manual signalling. TfL struggle to do that with full automation these days. So much for progress.

[Nearholmer]

I was always intrigued by that last point, which applied to the top half of the circle too, an incredibly intense service, especially because I’ve got a book with some antediluvian train planning graphs in it showing such frequencies, so I asked the Chief Signalling Engineer of LU about it. 
 

He explained to me that it had been achieved by having very short blocks, no overlap beyond signals, so trains might be separated only “by the thickness of a stick”, and if you delve through the accident reports available on Railways Archive, you will find that it all went horribly wrong fairly often, when trains overran signals and ran into stationary trains ahead. The collisions were at low speeds, and seem to have resulted in injuries and minor damage, rather than being catastrophic, which is possibly why they aren’t headline events in railway history.
 

PS: by the time of electrification, the services on the Circle were legendarily slow and unreliable too, you can find lots of contemporary moaning and groaning from users, which suggests that the Met and District were struggling to deliver the timetable, that there were just too many trains on the line to allow resilience.

 

 

Edited March 15 by Nearholmer

[Ray H]

I shall probably have to duck for cover after saying this but . . . 

 

I think a lot of the trouble with the Circle line and the tracks it uses is with the computer control, although I have no knowledge of it these days, the previous system being just that, a system, couldn't work in the same way as a signaller could. The signaller could often see where the trains were when they were still some way away and could mentally hatch a plan as to the order in which the trains would merge together.

 

Equally, smart platform work by staff and (often) passengers also cut platform dwell times. Modern signalling overlaps are greater than before too.

 

Add all them together and even a minor glitch can have a large ripple effect.

 

Even as late as the 1960s trains on the south and north sides of the Circle were running at or near to 38 trains per hour. As far as I am aware, they're not even scheduled to run at 30 tph these days.

[Nearholmer]

Relevant reading:

 

https://www.railengineer.co.uk/progress-with-the-four-lines-modernisation-project/

 

I’ve lost touch with which bits of this renewal/upgrade have now been commissioned, but relevant to this conversation, the article gives 32TPH as the performance requirement.