Double-Decker Trains

[patlucas]

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

[swisstrains]

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.

[patlucas]

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.

[pavorossi]

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.

[patlucas]

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?

[John H-T]

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!

[DSY011]

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

[Trev]

Some photos of the 4 DD EMU's here.

http://www.zenadsl5777.zen.co.uk/Railpix/

[swisstrains]

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

[Shed Cat]

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.