I left KX just before the 313's entered service, so have never been on one, it may be a better railway, but to me the Damage done to everything, keeps me wondering, was it worth it, the closure, of the widened lines, pass loco, Finsbury Park shed, one each of the Copenhagen & Gasworks tunnels, it looks so drab and uninteresting.
Mickey wrote:The railway or the British tax payer certainly got there monies worth back with those units we still have them running the services across the North London line(s) since they were first introduced on the NLL services back in the middle 1990s between North Woolwich & Richmond (although these days they run between Stratford Low Level & Richmond) and which they themselves had replaced some old 'clapped out' x2 car southern region EMUs that were running the services for a few years before they arrived in the early 1990s.
I grew to like the 313s during the 1990s although I preferred them in there original British Rail blue livery with full yellow front ends as running during the 1970s & 1980s between Moorgate & Welwyn Garden City & Hertford North but I wasn't so keen on there Railtrack & Network Rail 'silly' liveries of the late 1990s & 2000s.
Yes thats the livery brsince78 I thought they looked ok like that also I think they ran on the North London line during the mid/late 90s in a blue & grey livery the body work was in blue but along the length of the windows it was in a grey livery they looked ok like that as well I thought.
Down on the South Coast it seems that the 313's are frowned upon these days, perhaps they need a time with Pacer nodding donkeys, then they could moan. But I can remember as a commuter from Enfield Chase when they first came into service and suddenly you had clean seats and bright lights, no more springy bench seats and dirty misty windows, the occasional reverse at a station when the driver had overshot, but going home was fun sometimes, could be departing Wood Green and going up the flyover but certainly departing Winchmore Hill for Grange Park with the wrong leaves on the track, upon slipping the traction motors would trip out, perhaps 3 or 4 times before you really got going. Was certainly a step change but not as much fun as a Brush type 2 at full throttle coming out of the hole into platform 16 and cutting off about half way up the platform to stop at the top, or even a BTH type 1 on one occasion trying to start from pl16 with the 2nd man out with a sand bucket. Just thinking that these metro style units that are going to replace them will be a bit of a step change as well.
Winchmore Hill station was without doubt one of the worse stations to stop at in the "silly season". The high trees on both sides of the railway had grown across the rail tracks to form a tunnel. the 313s were very difficult to stop in either direction, you could enter the station on the up side which was a rising gradient before became a falling one just before the platform, many drivers slowed down to 10 mph and could be doing that speed at the other end before hitting the emergency brakes. It became much better when Network Rail cut back the trees and the units were fitted with sanding equipment.
As regards the 313s on the South Coast, I think the main complaint is the lack of toilet facilities on these units. You can see their point when two car diesel railcar services from Brighton to Ashford have toilets.
I left KX just before the 313's entered service, so have never been on one, it may be a better railway, but to me the Damage done to everything, keeps me wondering, was it worth it, the closure, of the widened lines, pass loco, Finsbury Park shed, one each of the Copenhagen & Gasworks tunnels, it looks so drab and uninteresting.
Same here manna with regards to what happened to not only the Kings Cross suburban area but with the whole ECML (multi-aspect colour light signalling & electrification) so by late 1975 I 'jacked the job in' as a secondman at Kings Cross loco in disgust!!.
Only to re-join B.R. again in early 1979 as a secondman (again) this time at Stratford MPD before transferring into the signalling grade in February 1980.
As for the 313s I didn't like them in 1976/77 when they took over the suburban services outta Kings Cross but 20 years later when they took over services on the North London lines they were ok and now I would say they done well maybe one will be preserved in the future and hopefully it mite be no.313 016 cos that one ALWAYS seemed to be passing Camden Road box when ever I happened to glance out the box window back in the late 1990s & early 2000s!!.
First apologies for being late to this but I only just found the forum looking for something else
As now resident on the south coast I have found that the 313 have followed me. I grew up in Hertford and my biggest disappointment when they came into service was that I could no longer sit in the front seat on a a Cravens and view the route into Kings Cross
But my father who used to commute from central London was much happier to have warm fast trains and the frequency of service that the launch of the Great Northern Electrics brought was a big positive
As to whether the locals here like the 313's. At the moment they'd take two coal wagons and an 08 shunter as long as it got them to their destination
