I remember travelling on this train as a child. From a child's point of view it was different and exciting and I always used to want to go upstairs. The drawback about the extended station stop times is valid but again there would still be more doors per-passenger than on long distance EMU's which did not have a door in every seating bay. Another drawback that comes to mind is that when boarding the train you really had no idea if anybody was in the upper deck of the closed compartment or not which could be worrying for passengers who may be nervous about such things.
Yes and thanks for this accurate RUclips. These were certainly innovative trains. Having air-con (of course unavailable at that time) would have made them more bearable onboard. But as you say station 'dwell' times ultimately made the DDs impractical for today's railway.
@@alexmcwhirter6611 Yet I wonder how today's dwell times with trains coming to a stand before the powered doors can be opened and then fully closed before the train can restart compare to dwell times with 4 SUBs and EPBs where doors were often opening and passengers disembarking before the train came to a stand. Of course, safety considerations are much better understood and considered these days. I only travelled on the DDs once as a child and remember it only vaguely now but know I was excited at the time.
I lived at Albany Park on the Dartford loop line and these were often the trains we used for school to Sidcup, back in the 60's. We did not realise back then just how lucky we were, great memories. Sad to see whats left of them now is such a sorry state, hope I get to see them restored in my lifetime!
One of these units used to run regularly from Dartford to Charing Cross via Sidcup. Off-peak it was comfortable and going upstairs was a novelty. During rush hours, upstairs suffocated and it took an age to get off past the standing passengers downstairs.
They were not true double decker carriages but more like 1½ decks. Similar ideas were tried, unsuccessfully, for road coaches. I've lived in Romania since 2010 and double decker carriages are used here. The lower deck is between the bogies with steps down at both ends and there are also steps up to the upper deck at both ends. Upper deck windows are curved to same profile as the ends to fit the loading gauge. They do result in limited headroom above the outermost seats for tall people although the average height of Romanians is the same as my height at 1.7m (5'7")!
I actually SAW one of these units once on the north kent line between Woolwich and Plumstead back in the 60's, or early 70's. And we just don't have the adequate clearances on our railways here in Britain, we invented railways but we made them too small, other countries saw what we built and also saw what we did wrong and improved on it by building lines with much bigger clearances, and I've been on a double deck train in the Netherlands, and it had the lower floor lower down in between the bogies. I don't know where they put all the essential under floor equipment...
It can’t be a coincidence that the experimental double decker train in Melbourne, Australia was the 4D. Wikipedia says it stood for Double Deck Development and Demonstration. But surely there’s a connection with this 4DD.
They ran from 1949 to 1971 A few carriages remain. A colleague at work was working on them. Originally 4001/2 they became 4901/2 because they gave up their numbers to the new PEP class in 1971. Travelled on french double deckers last week and their RER and SNCF services, they are absolutely fantastic. Makes us look a bit behind the times.
[\Pedant mode ON] Dartford Lines (plural). [\END Pedant mode] My late father point blank refused to get on the 4DDs. He'd rather have waited anything up to ½hr for ANYTHING else! I recall them in green at Welling, fresh blue at Woolwich Arsenal and distinctly washed out blue, withdrawn, awaiting their fate in the sidings at Plumstead
I think back then anything else would be a 4EPB wich were better on the basis of not being double decker but definitely given a bad reputation during there last years of service with the safety concerns of the compartment seating on certain carriages.
@@Southernregiontrains2876Be fair now .... even after the 4DDs bit the dust, Slade Green spoiled us rotten with BOTH Bulleid and BR outline EPBs, in 2 and 4 car sets (never saw a 2EPB on it's own) and later on, we got the permanently coupled HAP units, reclassified 4SAP and as if THAT wasn't enough, the Woolwich line saw Ramsgate based CEPs on fast services headed beyond Gillingham.. I rather liked the short lived 'Jaffa Cake' on those, though Blue/Grey on the suburban stock was a ruddy insult to the 'Inter City' livery!!
@@TheHoveHeretic the jaffa cake was a good livery but sadly things changed from London and south eastern so quickly that most trains were still in some variation of BR blue by the time NSE started, I'm not completely sure how jaffa cake would look on any of the plastic things though
Bulleid was also the readon that 2-stroke diesel engines were trialled on BR. The Modernisation Plan was only to include 4-stroke emgineuntil Bulleid put his oar in. This redulted in the utterly useless Class 28 or MetroVick Type 2 Co-Bo (the prototype Deltic wasn't part of the Modernisation Plan). Bulleid wasn't the engineer he thought he was.
I wouldn’t mind seeing double decker trains in the UK that would handle more passengers but that means you have to knock down so many bridges and rebuild them high enough to allow the double decker trains to pass underneath. And even tunnels that would have to be redeveloped or rebuilt to accommodate the double decker trains.
You don't need to tear all the bridges and tunnels down to fit double deckers, most railroads when adequating infrastructure to a new height gauge tend to dig out the floors of the tunnels and bridges and sink the track a few meters into the ground. Except for a few select cases where this isn't applicable due to other constraints this is a solved problem, the reality is that this kind of investment is a thing private operators are simply not willing to do due to elevated costs.
Having experienced the German double-deck stock (Both of which have the lower floor literal millimetres above the rail head) I've often wondered why Oliver Bulleid never seemed to consider having the lower deck suspended 2-3" above the rail in a similar way. Extending this to the 4DD (Which already had much of its traction equipment moved to an equipment room behind the driving cab) might've meant getting an extra „deck“ (=8 more seats) immediately below each upper-deck section. 😇 Many thanks for this though! I've had a long interest in the 4DD, but actual footage of it seems as rare as a Pendolino on the Basingstoke Mainline! 🙂
This is what I expected to see when I clicked on this video: I had no idea such a thing existed, but I figured it must have been solved by going lower. You certainly do feel very low down in the German Dostos, especially when you're next to a platform and see people's legs walking past your window.
@@Talon5516-tx3ih The thing I _love_ about the Dostos is that when you're sat on the lower deck, 200km/h _feels_ closer to 300km/h... 🚅💨😁 Somebody at Alstom *needs* to build us a -super-low-floor- TGV Duplex that fits the UK loading gauge... 🚄🇫🇷❤🔥💨💨💨
Lowering the lower deck floor to just above rail level was a difficult engineering concept in 1949 (when they entered service), and having such an arrangement on the motored cars wasn't completely solved on the New South Wales Railways until about 1970. Having said that, the trailer (non-powered) cars could have had their floors lowered in such a way; most double decker trains of that era (e.g. in Germany), were trailer sets hauled by a loco (diesel or electric).
I remember travelling on this train as a child. From a child's point of view it was different and exciting and I always used to want to go upstairs. The drawback about the extended station stop times is valid but again there would still be more doors per-passenger than on long distance EMU's which did not have a door in every seating bay. Another drawback that comes to mind is that when boarding the train you really had no idea if anybody was in the upper deck of the closed compartment or not which could be worrying for passengers who may be nervous about such things.
I travelled on one of these carriages as a child in the 50's and went upstairs. I didn't think it was too bad but a bit cramped for adults.
Wow, I never knew the UK even thought about double decker train. Like they do in Europe
Yes and thanks for this accurate RUclips. These were certainly innovative trains. Having air-con (of course unavailable at that time) would have made them more bearable onboard. But as you say station 'dwell' times ultimately made the DDs impractical for today's railway.
@@alexmcwhirter6611 Yet I wonder how today's dwell times with trains coming to a stand before the powered doors can be opened and then fully closed before the train can restart compare to dwell times with 4 SUBs and EPBs where doors were often opening and passengers disembarking before the train came to a stand. Of course, safety considerations are much better understood and considered these days. I only travelled on the DDs once as a child and remember it only vaguely now but know I was excited at the time.
Fascinating. Many thanks!
I lived at Albany Park on the Dartford loop line and these were often the trains we used for school to Sidcup, back in the 60's. We did not realise back then just how lucky we were, great memories. Sad to see whats left of them now is such a sorry state, hope I get to see them restored in my lifetime!
My nearest station during most of the service life of these units was Crayford. Just like you, I have wonderful memories of these.
Caught this many a time from Eltham (Well Hall) to Waterloo to go to school, and always had to go upstairs.
One of these units used to run regularly from Dartford to Charing Cross via Sidcup. Off-peak it was comfortable and going upstairs was a novelty. During rush hours, upstairs suffocated and it took an age to get off past the standing passengers downstairs.
Wonder if Mick & Keith ever rode it.
I used get the double decker from New Cross to Kidbrooke when leaving school. It only ran at off peak times.
Not correct that it ran only at off peak times.
A real shame we were never able to fully utilise double decker trains in this country
They were not true double decker carriages but more like 1½ decks. Similar ideas were tried, unsuccessfully, for road coaches. I've lived in Romania since 2010 and double decker carriages are used here. The lower deck is between the bogies with steps down at both ends and there are also steps up to the upper deck at both ends. Upper deck windows are curved to same profile as the ends to fit the loading gauge. They do result in limited headroom above the outermost seats for tall people although the average height of Romanians is the same as my height at 1.7m (5'7")!
I actually SAW one of these units once on the north kent line between Woolwich and Plumstead back in the 60's, or early 70's. And we just don't have the adequate clearances on our railways here in Britain, we invented railways but we made them too small, other countries saw what we built and also saw what we did wrong and improved on it by building lines with much bigger clearances, and I've been on a double deck train in the Netherlands, and it had the lower floor lower down in between the bogies. I don't know where they put all the essential under floor equipment...
It can’t be a coincidence that the experimental double decker train in Melbourne, Australia was the 4D. Wikipedia says it stood for Double Deck Development and Demonstration. But surely there’s a connection with this 4DD.
The Long Island Rail Road in NYC had a similar EMU, the MP70.
Nice history
They ran from 1949 to 1971 A few carriages remain. A colleague at work was working on them. Originally 4001/2 they became 4901/2 because they gave up their numbers to the new PEP class in 1971. Travelled on french double deckers last week and their RER and SNCF services, they are absolutely fantastic. Makes us look a bit behind the times.
[\Pedant mode ON] Dartford Lines (plural). [\END Pedant mode]
My late father point blank refused to get on the 4DDs. He'd rather have waited anything up to ½hr for ANYTHING else! I recall them in green at Welling, fresh blue at Woolwich Arsenal and distinctly washed out blue, withdrawn, awaiting their fate in the sidings at Plumstead
I think back then anything else would be a 4EPB wich were better on the basis of not being double decker but definitely given a bad reputation during there last years of service with the safety concerns of the compartment seating on certain carriages.
@@Southernregiontrains2876Be fair now .... even after the 4DDs bit the dust, Slade Green spoiled us rotten with BOTH Bulleid and BR outline EPBs, in 2 and 4 car sets (never saw a 2EPB on it's own) and later on, we got the permanently coupled HAP units, reclassified 4SAP and as if THAT wasn't enough, the Woolwich line saw Ramsgate based CEPs on fast services headed beyond Gillingham.. I rather liked the short lived 'Jaffa Cake' on those, though Blue/Grey on the suburban stock was a ruddy insult to the 'Inter City' livery!!
@@TheHoveHeretic the jaffa cake was a good livery but sadly things changed from London and south eastern so quickly that most trains were still in some variation of BR blue by the time NSE started, I'm not completely sure how jaffa cake would look on any of the plastic things though
This certainly didn't look like a double decker in the thumbnail.
The same concept is now being studied as a way to increase the capacity of passenger planes.
... like the 20 year old A380?
I bet these trains caused some aggro with all those people all crammed in close together winding each other right up.
Bulleid was also the readon that 2-stroke diesel engines were trialled on BR. The Modernisation Plan was only to include 4-stroke emgineuntil Bulleid put his oar in. This redulted in the utterly useless Class 28 or MetroVick Type 2 Co-Bo (the prototype Deltic wasn't part of the Modernisation Plan). Bulleid wasn't the engineer he thought he was.
I wouldn’t mind seeing double decker trains in the UK that would handle more passengers but that means you have to knock down so many bridges and rebuild them high enough to allow the double decker trains to pass underneath. And even tunnels that would have to be redeveloped or rebuilt to accommodate the double decker trains.
You don't need to tear all the bridges and tunnels down to fit double deckers, most railroads when adequating infrastructure to a new height gauge tend to dig out the floors of the tunnels and bridges and sink the track a few meters into the ground.
Except for a few select cases where this isn't applicable due to other constraints this is a solved problem, the reality is that this kind of investment is a thing private operators are simply not willing to do due to elevated costs.
Having experienced the German double-deck stock (Both of which have the lower floor literal millimetres above the rail head) I've often wondered why Oliver Bulleid never seemed to consider having the lower deck suspended 2-3" above the rail in a similar way. Extending this to the 4DD (Which already had much of its traction equipment moved to an equipment room behind the driving cab) might've meant getting an extra „deck“ (=8 more seats) immediately below each upper-deck section. 😇
Many thanks for this though! I've had a long interest in the 4DD, but actual footage of it seems as rare as a Pendolino on the Basingstoke Mainline! 🙂
This is what I expected to see when I clicked on this video: I had no idea such a thing existed, but I figured it must have been solved by going lower. You certainly do feel very low down in the German Dostos, especially when you're next to a platform and see people's legs walking past your window.
@@Talon5516-tx3ih The thing I _love_ about the Dostos is that when you're sat on the lower deck, 200km/h _feels_ closer to 300km/h... 🚅💨😁
Somebody at Alstom *needs* to build us a -super-low-floor- TGV Duplex that fits the UK loading gauge... 🚄🇫🇷❤🔥💨💨💨
Lowering the lower deck floor to just above rail level was a difficult engineering concept in 1949 (when they entered service), and having such an arrangement on the motored cars wasn't completely solved on the New South Wales Railways until about 1970. Having said that, the trailer (non-powered) cars could have had their floors lowered in such a way; most double decker trains of that era (e.g. in Germany), were trailer sets hauled by a loco (diesel or electric).
That's not a 4DD at 0.05! Pantograph?