C69 / C77 Stock Tread Plates

These two tread plates were obtained from two scrapped C Stock cars following the stock’s withdrawal from service in 2014. Initially, I was only planning to acquire only one plate, of either C69 or C77 stock, but eventually decided to have an example from both builds, just for completeness. In all of the following pictures, the C69 tread plate is at the top, and the C77 tread plate is below it.

As received, the tread plates were understandably very grubby, and still retained several of their fixing screws, along with lengths of adhesive strip. The plates were acquired on Tuesday, 22nd July 2014.

The Metro Cammell wording appears in the centre of both plates. Owing to the reduced width on the step part of these tread plates, in comparison to the 1967 and 1972 Tube Stock plates, the company’s ‘wheel’ logo is omitted.

The years of manufacture are cast at the same point on both plates. Notice that the C69 plate has a stress crack to the left of the year identifier - the next picture explains how this has happened.

This particular bolt must have been particularly troublesome to remove, as the aluminium casting is buckled and noticeably misshapen around the fixing hole.

‘England’ once again appears to the left of the casting.

The tread plates both measure just over 5 ft (1558 mm) in length at the longest point, and just over 5 inches (129 mm) in width. The front step is 1.5 inches (38 mm) in depth.

Turning the plates over, a rubber strip attached to the underside of the C69 plate’s step is visible - this is not present on the C77 plate.

The portion of the strip directly behind the damaged section of the plate is burnt, and the surrounding metal discoloured - clearly, some high temperature cutting gear was required to remove it in the end. The shiny metal strip on the C77 plate appears to be a later addition - perhaps installed during refurbishment in the early 1990s, in order to strengthen the floor around the doorway areas.

The part code 09/58/0063 is also visible on the rear side of the C69 plate.

Work to clean up the plates commenced a day after acquisition. The view below shows the C69 plate mid-way through this work. The raised ‘lumps’ along the length of the plate (used in guiding the doors) were especially fiddly to clean behind.

The aluminium was considerably more shiny once the clean-up was complete.

Notice that there are two rows of large bolt holes on these plates - after refurbishment, the upper set of bolts were hidden behind a channel that joined up with the new flooring; this being secured using new smaller bolts - the holes for these can be seen along the same piece of plate.

"That’s one small step[plate] for [a] man; one giant leap for mankind."

Of course, by the time that the C77 batch was produced, space travel would once again be at the forefront of peoples’ minds, thanks to a certain film franchise that commenced in the same year...

Back on Earth, and the majority of the adhesive material was also removed as part of the clean-up.

The remains of the old rubber strip can still be seen on the rear of the C69 plate, whilst the C77 plate appears to have been painted in an orange primer - perhaps as a way of reducing the build-up of corrosion.

Three countersunk bolts (used in securing the C69 treadplate) were also salvaged - notice how the ends are badly melted from the proximity of the cutting equipment used in the dismantling of the C Stock car.