C Stock Explorer Railtour - Exterior Photographs

The train was formed of units 5596, 5560 and 5727. The Driving Motor car of the former is seen at the Moorgate bay platform, prior to commencement of the tour. The sign attached to the pillar on the right dates from A Stock days, and reminds operators of this stock to ‘cut in’ the rear doors at this platform.

This side view of the cab area is seen at Amersham. Poppy transfers were applied to some trains in 2012 and again in 2013 in order to commemorate Armistice Day. Even when the C Stock trains are gone, we will remember them.

A Metropolitan line train of S8 Stock awaits departure in the adjacent platform. This view allows for the fronts of both stocks to be compared.

A special blind listing all of the destinations that would be covered on the tour was produced using lengths of A0 paper taped together - a simple, yet very effective means of producing a tour-specific blind. With the replacement of the tungsten filament tail lights with LED equivalents in the early 2000s, there was no longer a need for a separate low-wattage train stabling light - the black disc to the right of the right-hand tail light is the stabling light’s former position.

The train had been allocated the running number 770 - presumably, a nod to the C77 stock. Notice that the ‘M’ door handle is positioned behind a glass panel and also has a socket for the Underground’s ubiquitous "J Door Key" - this is to prevent unauthorised access when cabs are situated in the middle of a train, facing towards a passenger saloon.

A headboard displaying the tour name had been placed in the offside cab window.

A comparison (of sorts - darn the steel fence!) between the C and S Stocks.

The six cars of the train had been allocated the letters A - F, in order to ensure that people on the tour kept to the car to which their ticket permitted travel. The posters depicting this lettering included an artistic image of a C Stock train in its original unpainted aluminium finish, with the only colours being those of the lines that these trains served at the time.

The coupling between cars 5596 and 6596 almost made for a mirror image.

Passengers detrained at Acton Town, allowing the train to head into one of the two reversal sidings located to the east of the station. The hoardings to the left of the train hide the disused platform area that served as the terminal platform for the short branch to South Acton until its cessation in February 1959.

Our train awaits departure from the reversal siding as a Piccadilly line train of 1973 passes through.

One of the ‘destinations’ on the blind commemorated the C Stock’s 44 year service on the Underground. Notice that the train number box now displays ‘C69’.

Two options for operating the cab side doors are provided - either pressing a button, or manually by fitting a reverser key, and then rotating it clockwise to open, or anti-clockwise to close.