It’s the end of an era for the London Underground D78 stock train.
This also marks the end for single leaf door trains for the London Underground. The second rolling stock with single leaf doors was the 1983 tube stock for the Jubilee Line which was withdrawn in mid 1998.
The D stock trains first entered service on 28th January 1980 on the District Line and the final rolling stock was delivered back in 1983. There were 75 sets of D stock trains out of 450 cars built and the train consisted of 6 cars - the length of the D stock cars are 18 metres.
Some of the D stocks were formed in 3 cars that were used for the East London Line (currently London Overground) which operated between April 1985 and May 1987.
Here’s the video of the D stock on the East London Line, courtesy of Thames News.
The D stock trains had a refurbishment programme which began in the Summer of 2005; the refurbishment consisted of adding red, white and blue London Underground liver, a restyled interior in green and white, the addition of ‘end of car’ windows, replacing hanging strap bobbles with grab rails, dot matrix indicators for the interior and exterior showing information, added audio announcements and fitted CCTV.
Withdrawal of the D stocks began during early 2015 as they were being replaced with the newly delivered S7 stock trains.
After 37 years in service the D stock’s final service was on the 21st April 2017, crowded with enthusiasts experiencing the final service of the D stock on the District Line.
CityTransportInfo has taken footage of the D stock on its last day of service.
However, some of the D stock trains will have a new lease of life with National Rail train operator London Midland. The D stocks are being converted to diesel electric multiple unit and refurbished by Vivarail. The new name for the rolling stock is called Class 230 which is also known as D-Train. It is expected to enter service on the 19th July 2017. You can read more about the D-Train on Wikipedia here. In my view, this is good news! Giving the D stocks a new lease of life and all thanks to Vivarail.
To wrap up the article, here are some of my videos of the D stock in action:
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Image attributions
By Phillip Perry, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13502642
By mattbuck (category) - Own work by mattbuck., CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=38644007
