Over the years,

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent ceremonial counties of England, counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and He ...

has acquired various types of engineering stock to help with the construction of new lines and maintenance of existing lines. Some of these

wagons A wagon or waggon is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by draught animals or on occasion by humans, used for transporting goods, commodities, agricultural materials, supplies and sometimes people. Wagons are immediately distinguished from ...

were inherited from its predecessors, many were built new and some were acquired second-hand from the main-line railways. Several types of specialist wagons have been used, which are described below.

Overview

London Underground uses a numbering system comprising the wagon number prefixed with a letter which designates the wagon's type. These are summarised below.

Brake vans

The London Underground has used various designs of brake van. They were used for the

guard Guard or guards may refer to: Professional occupations * Bodyguard, who protects an individual from personal assault * Crossing guard, who stops traffic so pedestrians can cross the street * Lifeguard, who rescues people from drowning * Prison ...

's accommodation and for braking purposes (when wagons in the train were not fitted with automatic brakes). Two brake vans of interest were numbers FB578 and FB579. These were 'flat' brake vans, converted from flat wagons. The conversion consisted of building a small guard's compartment on one end of the flat wagon. Therefore, these wagons could be used for carrying small items, such as

sleepers ''Sleepers'' is a 1996 American legal crime drama film written, produced, and directed by Barry Levinson, and based on Lorenzo Carcaterra's 1995 book of the same name. The film stars Kevin Bacon, Jason Patric, Brad Pitt, Robert De Niro, Dustin Ho ...

, in addition to their role as a brake van. Six brake vans numbered B580–5 were built for London Transport by

British Railways British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most of the overground rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. It was formed from the nationalisation of the Big Four British rai ...

(BR) at the latter's Ashford Works in the early 1960s. They were built to a design which had been produced for BR since 1950 (BR Diagram 1/506 and 1/507), totalling units, and were the final examples of that design to be constructed.

Overview

Brake vans

Stock list

Preserved units

Gallery

References

External links