< View previous picture - View next picture > Photographer / Copyright Google Images should not be reused without permission. View vehicle details Location Link/s Elephant & Castle (London Rd) Depot Date added to site 25/09/2019 Printer-friendly version of this page

Details: Depots for tube trains need a lot of space and hence are generally in the outer parts of London, where land could be purchased more economically. There are a couple of small depots in inner London, two being within a mile of each other. The Waterloo and City line does not really have the option of a suburban base, so makes do with a cramped location underground at Waterloo. Half a mile south of this is the London Road depot of the Bakerloo line, whose main operating centre is out at Stonebridge Park. The inner London depot is presumably still useful to enable trains to start from (near) either end of the line first thing in the morning. Tracks diverge from the running lines just north of Lambeth North Station, rising to 'sub-surface' level before emerging into daylight at the depot. As can be seen, the depot comprises two fans of sidings, set at an angle, the northern-most sidings being covered by a shed. In the space between the sidings is a split-level yard, with a roadway ramp connecting the two levels. There are archways into the space underneath where the vehicles park but it doesn't look as though that area is used for anything. Road access to the depot is by a narrow alleyway between the houses and the old depot building, top centre in this view. The interesting thing about this photo is the service vehicles. The vehicle yard can be seen in the distance from passing buses and I had once counted ten vehicles parked there, thinking that this must be about the maximum. This photo shows that up to 17 vehicles could actually be accommodated, with 15 being present at the time of the photo. Two or three of these are unmarked cars but the remainder appear to be LUL vehicles. The image resolution is not good enough to be certain of the types but I reckon there are two Mk8 Transits, one Transit Custom, 6 small crew vans (probably VW Caddy Maxis), one other small van (possibly a Kangoo), one Peugeot Partner Tepee estate and one white car which could be an LUL Fiesta or Yaris. Finally, the chunky vehicle near the top of the ramp looks like a Ford Ranger with a hard-top, possibly 8078F.

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