We take a look at the financial situation on the Underground in general and consider whether closing the Bakerloo line merits serious consideration.
One of the more dramatic effects of Covid19 in London has been the reduced level of patronage on the Tube and its consequent effect on revenue. Coupling that with a rocky relationship between Sadiq Khan, the current London Mayor, and the government gives the impression that the future of the London Underground looks bleak. It has come to the point where Sadiq Khan has set off alarm bells by talking of closing a tube line ‘permanently’.
We never had it so good
We have been fortunate for most of the 21st century in that investment in the Tube has been substantial. Indeed, until three or four years ago one had the impression it was on a continuous path of improvement, increased frequency and steady growth of ridership.
This isn’t to say that there weren’t problems. Most notably, no clear strategy for replacing all of the old rolling stock and many technical challenges in running more trains over the same track. It was also true that large sums of money were being spent annually on capital investment. True, no new London Underground lines were being built, but it was recognised that the priority needed to be to upgrade the current system. Besides, Crossrail would be better than a new conventional Tube line. And the money put into Crossrail – even the originally planned budgeted amount – showed a huge amount of confidence in investing in London’s transport infrastructure.
But we probably have had it so bad before
For the younger members of society, the current financial crisis might seem to be a unique event triggered by a once-in-a-generation pandemic. A slightly older generation, however may well remember how truly grim the London Underground was in the 1980s and early 1990s. It was starved of investment, which led to unreliable services and uninviting, unloved stations. The money that was forthcoming was really either a direct result of the King’s Cross fire in 1987, which was a transformational moment for the Tube, or a fear of a future tragedy such as the rebuilding of Angel station to eliminate the danger of the crowded narrow island platform.
Another sign of decay and lack of expenditure on the Underground in the 1990s was the ‘temporary’ closure of Mornington Crescent and Regent’s Park stations. The lifts were life-expired and there was no money available to replace them. Around the same time, the cost of replacing the lifts at Aldwych also led the the permanent removal of passenger services on the Aldwych branch. As is often the case on any railway these days, it is when significant capital expenditure is required that the question of closure becomes a serious issue.
Less publicly known, in the early 1990s the Conservative government attempted to renege on a promise to provide £700 million a year for five years to improve the neglected track on London Underground. By then however, contracts had been let and most of the £700 million would have been spent on compensation payments to contractors. On discovering this, the government reluctantly reinstated at least some of the promised money for that year.
The Aldwych branch as well as the Epping to Ongar service on the Central line did permanently close. But many people would argue that, in fact, these closures were well overdue anyway and weren’t really down to a lack of investment. Passenger numbers were extremely low and falling, and there was no likelihood of them ever rising again. Even if the money was available, there were probably better things to spend it on. So despite these exceptional closures, the emphasis was really about cutting back the services, and occasionally station open hours, without really withdrawing services entirely.
Far more worrying from this period was the closure of the East London Line in 1995 to sort out the water ingress problem and build platforms at the Canada Water station which was being built as part of the Jubilee line extension. A listing order from English Heritage made the day before planned temporary closure, and the consequent increase in costs, meant that serious consideration was given to abandoning the Thames Tunnel between Rotherhithe and Wapping entirely, as well as closing the rest of the line. Of particular concern was that once the pumps stopped and nature was allowed to take its course, it was seen as next to impossible to consider re-opening the line in future. Of course, that did not happen, and today the East London line is a critical part of London Overground, but in all probability most people don’t appreciate how near that came to becoming a reality.
And it happened from the start
If we go further back in time, it seems that it is only in the period from the formation of the London Passenger Transport Board in 1933 until World War Two that the Underground can be said to have received sufficient funding. This sometimes gets referred to as the golden age of public transport, and can certainly be considered the golden age of the Tube. Perhaps we will come to refer to the period from 2000 to around 2015 as the silver age.
Outside the ‘golden age’ and ‘silver age’, the story of the Tube, like many main line railways, is a story of a company (or companies) struggling to stay afloat.
The first deep level tube was the City & South London Railway. This appeared to be successful and always expanding. But the success was illusory. The line was planned as a technological showcase rather than a serious railway. Why else would it omit building a station at London Bridge? Its expansion southwards was not a measure of its success but a consequence of people moving outwards from the centre of London, leaving the City & South London Railway constantly having to extend southwards to recapture the traffic they were losing.
Later came the Waterloo & City line, built by the London & South West Railway. This was not built to make a profit as such, but as a necessary loss-leader to ensure that its parent captured the lucrative commuter market into the City.
After that came various new Underground lines (including the Bakerloo) which were in dire financial straights and rescued by the somewhat financially-dodgy Charles Tyson Yerkes.
The late 1930s saw various schemes started, but war intervened. For some, completion was delayed by the war then, afterwards, by a combination of a lack of finance and lack of steel. One scheme, the Northern Heights Railway, was abandoned altogether despite much of the infrastructure having already been built.
So what is the future of The Tube?
This is of course impossible to answer, and we are normally averse to crayoning. But in the current context it is a question we should consider seriously and we already have a few pointers.
Railway infrastructure once closed is generally quite difficult to re-open, and this must apply especially to the Tube network. An exception is when infrastructure is kept in a state of readiness for re-opening (such as happened in 2020 with the Waterloo & City line) but that means maintenance expenditure for which there is no corresponding revenue.
As Aldwych and Ongar have shown, in the past it has taken a lot to justify permanent closure of a Tube line or part of a Tube line. It is difficult to see that happening anywhere nowadays where there is not an alternative service.
Politically, closures are also hard to do, but there is a rich history of lack of investment and a general ‘make do and mend’ policy, until such time as there is the political will to invest once again in transport.
The 1980s saw an uptick in public transport use which wasn’t really predicted. It didn’t initially lead to much investment because it was thought at the time to be a blip. So, a bit like share prices, the Underground’s long term ridership trend has always been increasing, even though events can lead to short term losses or reductions in numbers.
One consequence of the increase in passenger numbers since the 1980s was a reduction in ‘short workings’. Today, very few trains terminate at Tower Hill (District line service), or at Golders Green or Colindale (Northern line). Metropolitan trains from the north terminating at Baker Street is the exception nowadays but it used to apply to all off-peak services. Tooting Broadway short workings have not been timetabled for decades, although admittedly this was partly down to a safety issue with the turnback tunnel.
Reducing services at the outer ends of Tube lines
The deep tube lines tend to be fairly busy and, apart from the Bakerloo, there are currently no serious contenders for closure. Although one could query how important it is for the Central line to serve Ealing Broadway once Crossrail is open.
There could be reductions in off-peak service frequency at the outer reaches of some lines, which would reverse improvements made towards the end of the 20th century. However, it has often been shown that such savings are actually quite small, and you don’t need that many people on the train for it to cover its marginal costs. There is also the fear of the vicious circle where a cut in frequency leads to a cut in passenger numbers, which leads to a further cut in frequency.
A further problem with cutting back the service frequency at the outer end of tube lines is that often to save money in this way you need to invest money in creating or upgrading turnback facilities. In this respect the Jubilee line, with its recent reconstruction of the West Hampstead turnback and other turnbacks at both Willesden Green and Wembley Park, is already pretty much optimised when it comes to track layout. And the current timetable already takes advantage of the multiple turnback locations. This is good, but means that there really is no further opportunity for cost savings there, unless the core service through the centre of London is reduced.
In contrast to the Jubilee line, the Northern line doesn’t really have turnback facilities at suitable places to provide a decent service and make operational savings. It has a turnback facility at Colindale but this is only two stops from the end of the line, and terminating some services there would only provide minimal cost savings. There have long been plans for a turnback at East Finchley, which was originally considered to optimise use of the available rolling stock. But here’s the rub: To save operating expenditure you often need capital expenditure and that is something TfL don’t have the money for. Otherwise they wouldn’t be in a position of needing to cut services to begin with.
One can see just how difficult it can be to make savings in this way by looking at how British Rail struggled to get investment to automate level crossings, despite a potential rate of return that would have left businessmen salivating.
Is closing the Bakerloo line a serious proposition?
From the outset we have to remember that nothing more has been threatened than ‘closure of a Tube line or part of a Tube line’. The Bakerloo line has not been officially mentioned, but it is generally assumed that is the line to which closure is most likely to happen. It is also the case that none of the copious financial documents issued by TfL, as they consider financial options available, have considered the closure of a Tube line.
We also need to remember that either the Circle or the Hammersmith & City could be ‘closed’ as the lines are almost totally replicated by other services. However these have relatively new rolling stock, are fairly busy, and their closure would lead to very little infrastructure savings. It also wouldn’t lead to any more savings in staff costs than could be achieved by just reducing the service on both the lines.
Of course, there could be reductions in off-peak service frequency at the outer reaches of some lines. But, as we have already pointed out, the saving is actually quite small and you don’t need that many people on the train for it to cover its marginal costs.
Is partial closure of the Bakerloo line a serious proposition?
The problem with attempting to fully or part close any Tube line is obvious from even the briefest glance at a Tube map: everything is interlinked and interdependent, and that makes any major opportunities for closure very limited.
An obvious contender for closure is the Bakerloo line north of Queen’s Park. This could be served entirely by London Overground, who already share the track with the Bakerloo line and are not currently fully utilising their fleet. So savings by London Underground would be partially offset by an increase in costs to London Overground. There would be savings in track access costs but this would be reduce Network Rail’s revenue. So if the government were funding the Underground, they would in reality be transferring internal costs from one area of the Department for Transport’s expenditure to another.
A bigger problem is that the main depot for the Bakerloo line is at Stonebridge Park, which is north of Queen’s Park. Without that depot, there would be only the 11 sidings at London Road depot near Lambeth North and four sidings in the train shed just north of Queen’s Park. This would probably not be enough to run any kind of sensible service, and would not provide the necessary maintenance facilities for major examinations of the trains which take place on a regular basis.
One could argue for closure north of Stonebridge Park so that the line still had a depot, but this would only result in reducing the service to five stations and saving a 10 minute journey time (so 20 minutes out and back) on the four trains per hour that go all the way to Harrow & Wealdstone. The only likely infrastructure saving would be a minimal one in not having to maintain the ‘fourth rail’ that is only used by Underground trains. Even that saving may be one that saves money for Network Rail with none of the saving being seen by TfL.
Maybe not now, but one day
Although we have initially dismissed the idea of the Bakerloo line closing, there is a consideration for the future which could tip the scales.
It is well-known that the Bakerloo line trains are already very old. Even the Isle of Wight operates newer ex-Underground trains – and theirs are fully refurbished and could be mistaken for new trains. The Bakerloo line operates using 1972 stock trains introduced into service between 1972 and 1974. So the trains are already nearly 50 years old. Furthermore, these trains were based on the 1967 stock which was used on the Victoria line and was withdrawn over ten years ago. So, superficially, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to regard them as already five years into borrowed time.
If there is a saving grace regarding Bakerloo line trains, it is that they are believed to be structurally sound after extensive work on them in 2015-2017.
The current Bakerloo line trains are the last of an ‘old technology’ era and feel very dated. Because the technology is simpler they could, in theory, be maintained indefinitely. However, the Bakerloo line, in contrast to the Victoria line, has tight curves and is a harsh environment to operate in. The fear is that one day the trains will require more tender loving care than is available to give to them. With TfL’s budget so restricted, despite any optimistic words said, they really do not want to incur the capital cost of replacing these trains until they absolutely have to.
Unfortunately, there is no sign of any funding being available in future to replace the trains. We then get back to the issue that it is generally a expensive item of capital expenditure that leads to closure of the line. Once Crossrail is open, which will suppress demand on the Bakerloo even further, one could envisage a situation where the service on the Bakerloo line gets reduced, not because of reduced usage but simply because the trains cannot be maintained to provide the service. In case anyone thinks this is fanciful, this is exactly what happened on the Isle of Wight before the ‘new’ trains arrived. On some days there wasn’t a single serviceable train that could be run.
If there were enforced train service reductions on the Bakerloo line because of unserviceable trains, there would probably be a reduction in demand. There then must become a point when either it is unsafe to operate the line due to the unpredictable service available, or that the cost of keeping the line open is disproportionate when considering the number of passengers still using it.
The Bakerloo line is currently lightly used and at almost every station there is a good alternative station. The main exceptions are Warwick Avenue and Maida Vale. Shutting the line might not be popular but may become unavoidable. It would also save capital expenditure, running, and some maintenance costs. Current indications are that the government wants TfL to be completely self-funding by 2025. Even if the money were forthcoming, there would be no chance of new Bakerloo trains before 2028 when the new trains for the Piccadilly line would have been delivered.
Maybe something salvaged out of a closure
If there is a real possibility of the Mayor (current or future) being forced (or choosing) to close the Bakerloo line, then there is the possibility of a silver lining. The Bakerloo line is due for an upgrade and upgrades are very difficult to carry out when trying to run a train service at the same time. We have already mentioned the East London line closing for years for a major upgrade. In fact, this has happened twice and the long term lasting impact has been to attract users to the improved line rather than cause passenger levels to go down. Similarly, the Waterloo & City had a five month closure for upgrading. And even the Isle of Wight had a prolonged closure (not all of it intended) in order to upgrade the island’s railway.
It can be seen as a bad thing or an opportunity, but so much needs to be sorted out with the Bakerloo line. Most obvious is that it needs new trains and new signalling. There is also the desire to extend it southwards. Less obvious is that it probably needs a new control centre, the power supply could do with upgrading to allow for regenerative braking, and the voltage could be increased to 750V to reduce power losses and the consequent generation of heat. It would be wonderful if the tight curves could be tackled, as was done on the Northern line Bank branch in the 1990s. The only way all this could realistically be done is if the line were closed to enable the work to take place.
The long term future might be brighter
Recessions do not last for ever and neither do pandemics. Patterns of work, shopping and peak times of travel demand may change, but it is almost impossible to imagine the centre of London not being a busy place in future. It would be madness to talk of new Tube lines or new Crossrail lines if one didn’t utilise the lines one already have. So things might look bad today, and the Bakerloo line may possibly have a long period of closure one day, but it is hard to imagine it closed forever. It’s much easier to imagine that one day it will finally get its long-overdue line modernisation, including its new trains.
Setting the sights lower
Investing in railways, as with most other major projects, is generally a story of grand plans that get whittled down as aspiration clashes with economic reality. Given that it would be tragic if the Bakerloo line tunnels became an abandoned asset, there really needs to be some focus on sorting out what we already have and leaving schemes like the Bakerloo Line Extension and Crossrail 2 for more prosperous times in the future. It is clear that the Bakerloo line cannot go on forever as it is. We are moving towards a time, maybe five years away, maybe ten but unlikely to be much more than that, when serious consideration may have to be given to closing the Bakerloo line for an extended duration. At least until such time as it can be brought up to the necessary standards to operate as an Underground railway again.
Please avoid crayoning or erasing of lines in the comments. The focus of this article is on the impact of any closure, not the impact of closing a particular line or segment.
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An interesting article, but in the sentence (in para 4) “The money that was forthcoming was really either a direct result of the King’s Cross fire in 1987, which was a transformational moment for the Tube” the words “really either” seem to be surplus, or the alternative needs to be stated.
Point taken. It highlights the danger of “too many cooks”. I have put it back to how it was originally drafted. PoP
I presume closing the W&C would not save sufficient money – just a few train operators and train maintainers.
My proposed list would be:
1st The Jubilee Line as it is the last to open – well at least the extension
2nd The Bakerloo based on the risks of running 1972TS on an Earthed Third Rail System. This will not be reduced until (if?) the rolling stock is replaced with new stock with better arc protection.
3rd The Piccadilly as the signalling system is life expired and the risks due to failure of the signalling system must be increasing with time despite the ad-hoc replacement of some of the wiring.
I am sure this will raise some comments !
I would simply close anything that ran to a Conservative seat to force the government into providing funding.
Does anything in the article actually run at a loss? Or is the assumption that you get to keep most of the revenue as people are forced onto other services?
Closing the Bakerloo would have the effect of disconnecting a London Terminus from the Tube network. Marylebone is only served by the Bakerloo. The only currently unserved London Terminus is Fenchurch Street. However, it is a fairly short walk from Marylebone to either Edgware Road (Circle + H&C) or to Baker Street: Google reckons 4 minutes for the former and 7 for the latter.
Further down the line, Regent’s Park is a 3 minute walk from Great Portland Street. Or there are entrances to the park itself near Baker Street. Lambeth North is a bit further away from other stations but it’s only about 10 minutes from Southwark. Every other station is already served by at least one other line.
Adding Crossrail in as well picks up the Northern line at Tottenham Court Road rather than Charing Cross.
All that said, I wonder if funding would be suddenly forthcoming if TfL decided to turn the Met and Piccadilly short at Rayner’s Lane, rather than continuing to Uxbridge.
Can a world city like London and its transport system really be compared to the IoW and their railway in any meaningful way? How could Crossrail impact on the Bakerloo Line when they neither share stations or the general direction of the line? When I lived and worked near High Barnet, 20 tph was amazing but must be considered excessive and a turn back at East Finchley seems long overdue. You also didn’t mention Golders Green that has that facility.
Andy Ketch,
I would argue that yes the Isle of Wight railway can be compared in a meaningful way when it comes to the maintenance of rolling stock. True, the Bakerloo line doesn’t have salty sea air but the problem is the same – how to keep very old tube trains running.
As mentioned in a comment above, consider a journey to Oxford Street from Paddington when considering the effect of Crossrail on the Bakerloo line. There are also other journeys which currently involve one change and part of the journey is made on the Bakerloo line that would also be impacted by Crossrail e.g. Paddington to Stratford where one current option is the Bakerloo line to Oxford Circus then the Central line.
Golders Green was mentioned!
Mike Diimmock,
Closing the Bakerloo would have the effect of disconnecting a London Terminus from the Tube network. Marylebone is only served by the Bakerloo.
True, but that is not that much of a big deal. Baker Street to Marylebone is already an Open Station interchange used by lots of people daily. And Marylebone tube station has been partially closed for entry for long periods during escalator renewal and it didn’t seem to create much on an issue. Is the the enforced walk really that much worse that Euston main line to Euston Square?
I think I am right in saying that the Bakerloo interchanges with more NR lines than any other. Thameslink (E&C), Waterloo (SWR), Charing X (SE), Marylebone (Chiltern), Paddington (GWR) and the section onwards from Queens Park (LO / LNWR). The point is, closing this line would make cross-London connections significantly more arduous.
Interesting read as always although I think the question in the title possibly wasn’t really answered! I guess the key questions would be: 1) What expenditure is saved at line level by closure vs central network costs which are still incurred? 2) What proportion of revenue is lost to the network rather than rerouted? 3) What share of any future growth is lost by the same effect? 4) What extra costs might be incurred elsewhere such as absorbing any overcrowding from diverted traffic or possible redundancy payments?
@Surfblue
Only TfL has these figures, and they’ve not released any of them.
James
NO
Overground(I) / Overground(II) / GrtAnglia + Overground(III)/ Piccadilly (I)+ GN(I) / GN(II) / GN(III)+Thameslink+LNER+MML + Piccadilly(II) + H&C + Met +Northern(I) / AvantiWC + Northern(II) / Northern(III) / Bakerloo + Central / Piccadilly(III) + Jubilee / District + Southern + SE / SWR / Northern(IV) / Overground(IV)
The Victoria Line, of course ….
[ Only Pimlico is not an interchange ]
@LBM.
I suspect the answers might also be closer to guesswork than anyone working them out would care to admit. My gut feeling is that it would be Beeching like and fail to realise much in the way of overall savings.
Present issues aside the approach you outline would make enormous sense for any upgrade. Of course in an ideal world you’d start building the extension now then close the whole line once you were ready to join it all up…
Interesting article. Change is slow and expensive. I note that the kings cross fire in 1987 resulted in the removal of wooden escalators, the last one at greenford was removed 2019. The world changes much faster though and and tfls assumption that improvements will be funded by ever increasing ridership appear to be wrong, you can’t just put a ruler in the graph. There is no money to pay the massive accumulated debt 13BN (130% revenue), or maintain current services. You will have to cut hard and fast to save money as service cuts mean revenue reductions as well. Tfl have been borrowing every year for the last 10 years so they have never been sustainable so it’s not likely now or ever (2023, 2025, dream on) with 58% tube ridership. There are alot of backroom staff and contractors that could be cut (staff cost 3BN per year) Londoners must except that a train every 2 minutes is not affordable and services will need to be cut drastically.
“Once Crossrail is open, which will suppress demand on the Bakerloo even further”
It’s possible that me reading this before my morning cuppa has kicked in is preventing me from understanding, but could somebody elaborate on how an east/west railway line opening will suppress demand on a north/south tube line, please?
See second paragraph of this comment (comment number 6). PoP
UPDATE
It appears that someone blinked …
To explain, there has been a one-week extension of the current deal.
“There is no money to pay the massive accumulated debt 13BN (130% revenue), or maintain current services.”
This is a political decision not a financial fact. London is the only world city without substantial financial revenue support for its public transport system from public funds.
I have corrected the author of this post to be Pedantic of Purley. We regret the error.
But I wasn’t the author of the title! I agree with Surfblue that the title isn’t really answered in the article. In fact closing a tube line has limited savings if you still have to maintain the infrastructure. Many of the Bakerloo line stations are shared with other lines so you still need staff and you still need to keep them open and run escalators or lifts. If you plan not to maintain the infrastructure you still need to inspect it. Remember there are Bakerloo line tunnels under the Thames so you either have to maintain them or plug them to avoid a potential catastrophe. A hybrid solution would be to reinstate the flood gates. The basic trouble is you still have costs but no revenue to offset those costs, although some revenue would be retained if people merely found an alternative tube route.
If you cut back services you maintain most of your costs, but the reduced service tends to mean you don’t proportionally maintain most of your revenue.
Gaz,
Yes the debt is concerning. But it was negotiated at a very favourable rate of interest so if inflation continues to be relatively high and the rate of interest is fixed (I don’t know it is, I am just assuming) then in one sense it is a good deal. However, this doesn’t overcome the basic problem that you are supposed to pay it back one day. Of course, it is backed by the government, but I can’t see them being very happy about being called in to pay the debt if TfL defaults.
@Alex,
You mean, terminating Metropolitan & Piccadilly at Rayners Lane and Central at Northolt?
Gaz said : ‘I note that the kings cross fire in 1987 resulted in the removal of wooden escalators, the last one at greenford was removed 2019.’
The reason for this was that Greenford was not a ‘section 12’ station being above ground so the regulations did not require the escalator to be replaced.
By the way the term ‘wooden escalator’ is misleading. The only parts made from wood were the balustrade panels and the step cleats. The step cleats were probably fire proof being soaked in Alum during manufacture the same as the train flooring. The black plastic treads on the Victoria Line introduced to reduce customer accidents from the ‘strobe effect’ had a much higher fire load.
The TfL Programmes and Investment Committee papers for 15 December 2021 meeting state: An enhancement scheme was originally included as part of the Northern line capacity optimisation to provide a new ‘scissors’ crossover at East Finchley to enhance reversing capability. Following further modelling and value analysis to demonstrate the robustness of peak timetable uplifts and the introduction of NLE services without additional reversing capability, this scheme was removed from scope. (saving £20m)
Pertinent quote from “Ian Visits”:
TfL is expected to need to raise an additional £500 million to £1 billion in revenue per year to offset the drop in passenger fares. That is coincidentally pretty much in the range of the central government grant that TfL used to receive until it was cut off in 2018.
Taz,
Interesting. I must admit that I didn’t read the voluminous papers with as much care as you, I suspect this is really weasel words as I can’t believe the scissors crossover was necessary but they can now achieve the same proposed timetable without it. They can certainly achieve the current timetable plus the extra trains to Battersea Power Station post Bank Upgrade without the new scissors crossover as it wouldn’t be hard to find the extra train† necessary by simply having an extra train in service. Train utilisation isn’t stretched on the Northern line.
Remember this was proposed when the initial service to Battersea Power Station was to be 16tph in the peaks rising to an 24tph as traffic built up. Now it looks like 12tph will suffice for a long time to come.
It all seems a bit ”Yes, Minister’ -ish. Announce a ‘saving’ of £20 million pounds by announcing a saving of something in the future that you haven’t yet spent money on.
† – run time from Kennington to Battersea Power Station is only 4 minutes so only 8 extra minutes run time for an extra 6 tph. So at best they can achieve this with the same number of trains but more likely it would need one extra train. A maximum of 97 trains are in service in the peaks out of a fleet of 105 trains. 98 trains in service is a utilisation level of 93.3% which is not exceptionally high.
What is the compatibility between Bakerloo’s ’72 stock and Piccadilly line’s ’73 stock like?
I think I recall reading previously that the Piccadilly trains can’t run on the Bakerloo due to the tight curves, but what about from the spare parts perspective (in both directions)?
In other words, if the Bakerloo were closed, could the trains become spares donors for the Piccadilly, thus enabling the costs of the new trains to be spread over a longer period, or the new trains to be reallocated?
Conversely, if the Bakerloo remained open, could the outgoing ’73s be used to keep help the ’72s running considerably longer and/or at a lower cost?
On a different note, what would be the cost savings of reducing opening hours (e.g. early closure or closed on Sunday) of individual stations, sections of line, whole lines, or perhaps even the entire system? I suspect the answer is “minimal” (and perhaps outweighed by negative wider economic effects)
DJL,
What is the compatibility between Bakerloo’s ’72 stock and Piccadilly line’s ’73 stock like?
Unfortunately, I suspect practically none at all. 72 stock was the last of the old school and was almost purely mechanical. 73 stock was the first generation of new school and had, for instance, extensive but crude electronic fault finding. Also I am pretty sure that 72 stock is all-steel and 73 stock largely aluminium. You might be able to reuse seat cushions but I have my doubts about anything more than that.
what would be the cost savings of reducing opening hours [?]
This is an unknown for which we do not have figures for. However, it is not as easy as it was in the old days when Sunday was a quiet day. Nowadays (especially since Covid) Sunday is quite busy compared to weekdays.
On a daily basis, even though traffic is light first thing in the morning you need the time both to bring all the peak period trains into service and to find any issues before the busy period commences (and hopefully fix them quickly). So you are pretty much limited to closing down a bit earlier than now (when and where Night Tube is not running). I suspect after Sarah Everard’s murder that is going to be extremely difficult to sell to the public.
As a purely personal idea and a stab in the dark, I wonder if closing the Bakerloo line on Sundays would be worthwhile. They run most of the trains they do Monday-Friday but, I suspect, with much fewer passengers. The relevant point is that most Bakerloo journeys can be made by another route and on Sundays, when traffic is steady and not so peaked, other lines could probably handle the extra traffic without difficulty. But, as you say, that might have negative wider economic effects. This would include putting people off travelling on the Underground because they are not sure which lines are open when. I know it is easy to find out but people like a ‘turn up and go’ service.
Just a few comments from a personal perspective. I have virtually abandoned use of the Bakerloo Line. I used to use it to get from Waterloo to Harley Street (no I wasn’t seeking private medical treatment!) via Regents Park, but have mostly replaced that with a journey on the Jubilee Line to Baker Street. Almost as quick and more frequent. Another regular trip is from Walthamstow to Waterloo. I gave up changing from Victoria to Bakerloo at Oxford Circus and now change at Green Park to the Jubilee. The combination of speed and frequency makes that a winner. Lastly, I sometimes arrive at Paddington and find the Bakerloo to be useful, mostly changing at Oxford Circus. However, once Crossrail is operating, I suspect I’ll make use of that instead.
Recently, I’ve made a bit more use of the Bakerloo, mainly due to Covid, in that it’s less crowded heading north from Waterloo, and during the pandemic I’ve been careful to mostly use those services with larger trains and those with less crowding.
East Finchley reversing scheme was developed to reduce the number of new trains to be bought to provide 30+tph on the line. As that plan became unaffordable, the scheme remained an option to release sufficient trains for a Battersea service with the current fleet. When alternatives solved that problem, it could be abandoned, the £20m cost an indication of the signalling and track works required to provide a new reversing facility to allow shortworkings for operating economies!
Surely the Central line is the service that could be thinned once Shenfield CrossRail is up and running.
Nicholas Lewis,
Surely the Central line is the service that could be thinned once Shenfield CrossRail is up and running.
You would think so wouldn’t you? But if I recall correctly, the modelling shows that the Central line will act as a feeder to Crossrail at Stratford and usage east of Stratford on the Central line would actually go up. All this of course is pre-Covid.
The plan was to reduce the service to Ealing Broadway (which would go down as a result of Crossail) to enable a slight frequency enhancement on the Central line in the centre section and the eastern branches. I tend to agree that it is questionable whether the central section of the Central line would actually need to be as frequent as now but it is not practical to terminate some inbound trains at Stratford or anywhere in the central section.
It seems to me that if the real problem here is that the Bakerloo could end up with a very small number of serviceable trains and the line needs to close to be re-engineered (remove the tight curves, new signalling and so on).
TfL could:
– use the London Overground to service the stations between Harrow & Wealdstone and Queens Park. I’m not sure how many trains could run (because of the limited platform space at Euston) but I guess they could step-back the drivers on a single platform if that was necessary;
– limit the Bakerloo line to run from Queens Park to Paddington. The limited number of trains could run from the North Shed at Queen’s Park down to Paddington, which is 3.4km (according to the Railway Junction Diagrams). There is a set of Powered Points (7A/7B) just north of Paddington so a train could run into Underground platform 4 at Paddington and then go north again.
– put in Walking Routes above ground for Regent’s Park from Great Portland Street (182 metres) and Lambeth North from Waterloo (360 metres).
Given that the Network Rail/London Underground boundary is just north of Queen’s Park North Shed, I think this would be the best way to keep the Bakerloo Line alive whilst re-engineering it. There is room to store five trains in Queen’s Park, which would be enough to provide a turn-up-and-go service linking Queen’s Park, Kilburn Park, Media Vale, Warwick Avenue and Paddington.
I accept the point that going Queen’s Park to Baker Street would be even better, but there is nowhere a train can turn back again until Piccadilly Circus.
Brian Butterworth,
I was puzzled by your reference to five trains stabled at Queen’s Park but it seems you are correct. Only three are stabled in the north shed to enable litter picking etc. on a rotated basis (a normal LU practice) but I had omitted the two south sidings which are actually to the east of the station. I had also omitted the fact that one train is stabled overnight at Elephant & Castle.
It might seem like a small point but I believe the only washer is at Stonebridge Park which would be another reason why abandoning the line short of Stonebridge Park would be extremely difficult. Of course you could put a washer in London Road (Lambeth) depot or even Queen’s Park but only at the expense of at least one siding.
PoP,
Thanks for your answer. I suppose that if the hypothetical situation is the rebuilding of the whole of the Bakerloo line then I also can suppose moving “Wash Plant No.21 ” at the entry to depot at Stonebridge to somewhere at Queen’s Park might be fundable.
Another option is to get paths on the 5km of track for the five trains to be cleaned at the entrance to the depot from time to time. I realise I have no idea how often a tube train is washed. It looks possible on the track diagram to take a northbound train into the wash plant and then come back out southbound, but I can’t tell if there is the ability for the driver to change ends on the wash plant,
Additionally, having a look at 2LNWS Sectional Appendix December 2021″ (page 117 MD101, Seq 001) it seems that the DC lines are physically connected (at Camden Junction) to platforms 8, 9, 10 and 11. The Overground trains use platform 9 at the moment, so it may be possible to get one more platform if more trains are needed to replace a “being upgraded” – or get a step-back going on a single train.
Given that only the Overground trains run between Camden Junction (MS120/001) and Queen’s Park (MS120/0012) there are no capacity issues.
Interesting the MS120/0012 page shows four shed sidings on the North Shed and two in the South Shed, which means six hypothetical old Bakerloo for this service, rather than five.
PoP. 1972 tube stock has steel underframe. I recall the the 1972 tube stock mk1 stock, like 1967 tube stock had steel body frames with aluminium cladding. I also recall that the 1972 mk2 tube stock (33 of the 36 trains) were lighter than the mk1 so it’s possible that aluminium framing was adopted. 1973 tube stock is definitely steel underframe, with aluminium frame/panel superstructure.
However, the general thrust is right. There are virtually no common parts. The only things that come to mind are the car end door – known as R and S doors.
@Brian Butterworth
Maybe it’s too much crayonism but if platform capacity at Euston is an issue maybe they could run some trains to Stratford via the abandoned Primrose Hill station?
Pewee
They would then have to Re-Lay the 3+4th conductor rails all the way along there. A trifle expensive …..
It’s long been 25kV overhead, I’m afraid!
@Gaz
Above the basic “turn up and go” service level of every 15 mins – or less if you’re out in Buckinghamshire or on the Hainault loop – tube service frequencies are driven by the number of people wishing to travel, not some widespread expectation of a service every 2 minutes, which in itself has only ever really been true of specific lines at peak times.
Londoners by and large won’t much notice a service frequency difference much, so long as they’re able to enter the station without queueing and can board the first train that arrives without it feeling like a rugby scrum.
So if there is lower demand in certain areas, TfL will where possible, and probably without much fanfare, reduce service frequencies to match.
The issue, as mentioned in the article is that a service frequency needed to meet demand on one part of a line may result in an apparently excess frequency on another part of the line, or in the opposite direction. In some cases this is unavoidable because there are no facilities to terminate and reverse trains early, and such facilities would cost much more money than the marginal service reduction would save – and in any case money is not available to build them. Ditto for any idea of running shorter trains off-peak, which would just create more problems (=costs) than it would save. And of course empty-ish trains will always have to run in the opposite direction to any busy peak flow, for hopefully obvious reasons.
@Peewee
It might be easier to just modify the existing Southern trains that run from Clapham Junction to Milton Keynes Central via Watford Junction? This diagram shows the interaction between the trains and the Overground…
https://ukfree.tv/styles/images/2021/Overground-In-car-Diagram.jpg
The problem with this is that it wouldn’t be possible to serve Queen’s Park and Kensal Green.
@Greg T
Ahh apologies, I was under the impression the 710s were dual voltage, I didn’t realise the 710/3s weren’t fitted with a pantograph.
@Mike Dimmick:
“Every other station is already served by at least one other line.”
Kilburn Park, where I live, is another exception. True the Overground station is a few minutes’ walk away, but nobody I know considers this a convenient connection!
@Tom P
Indeed… thus the suggestion to have a residual six-train service from Queen’s Park to Paddington.
Snip. Too crayonista in world with Covid. PoP
As the previous much less infective variants of Covid cam close to shutting down large sections or perhaps all the Underground perhaps Omicron will manage to make the cuts itself in a non managed way.
Some vital positions have relatively few people to cover them with the appropriate training / experience & licences. I can think of some critical areas but am not going to post them in a public forum. As some of these groups of people work together and meet at shift change the risk of a large proportion going off sick or self isolating at the same time must be pretty high.
People may be aware that several lines came close to (or were closed ?) for a time during the previous outbreak due to a shortage of critical staff.
We live in interesting times.
I’ve made a Tube Map version without the Bakerloo (except my Queen’s Park to Paddington idea) but with Crossrail.
https://ukfree.tv/styles/images/2021/no-bakerloo.jpg
The Liz Line would be useful here as the Paddington connection to the Bakerloo stub I suggested.
It is reported that .. Mayor Khan is looking to increase GLA Council Tax to pay for the deficit imposed on London’s Transport.
Ian Visits has put up a detailed breakdown HERE
It also points out some of the anomalies whereby other cities get transport relief, but London does not.
The article & the comments above ignores cutting costs through increased productivity.
Manufacturing, road transport, the air industry & shipping make enormous strides every year to get more output
through better management of staff. And that is without needing investment, just skilful, motivated management.
The Vic line used to get 5 rounders from drivers per shift. TfL caved in & reduced it to four, though it left staff with idle time in their shift. TfL wanted automatic door opening on the Vic & other lines so the public could exit the moment the wheels stopped turning. It would have increased train & driver productivity through reduced journey time specially on the Northern & Jubilee.. ASLEF refused it.
I travel through Waterloo Northern/ Bakerloo gates most days, peak & off peak.
Five staff stand there peak & off talking in a bunch by the gates doing nothing. In Singapore the gate staff do the litter picking too, so if they are needed in an emergency they can be diverted from cleaning to the problem..
Drivers on restricted duties do virtually nothing. They could do litter picking & gates & be a presence at stations rather than sitting in mess rooms & being allowed home after 3 hours every day.
Only the health service has more staff earning over a hundred thousand pounds a year than TfL.
This is the tip of the waste iceberg that is TfL No need to close anything or reduce frequencies. Just bite the bullet at this quiet time & force an end the most blatant restrictive practises.
Jim Elson,
I totally agree with the main thrust of your comments and they are not limited to TfL as they apply to National Rail too. However, I do wonder whether further redundancies (other than by natural wastage) are palatable at the present and that may be bit of an issue. Also, making staff redundant and paying them off only to, possibly, have to re-engage them when we get to the ‘new normal’ might be an issue too.
Litter picking is something close to my heart and is something I think all operational staff should, in principle, be prepared to do in order to present the public with an attractive product. Obviously one can’t expect the majority of staff to deal with some of the more ‘unsanitary situations’ – not least because special heath & safety training should be given.
I find it incredibly frustrating that, in order to get fast turnaround, aeroplane captains working for EasyJet are expected to assist the rest of the crew in cabin preparation at the end of a flight yet we never ask the same of our staff on TfL (buses and trains) or National Rail. On National Rail some termini are remote so little chance of economically arranging for any carriage cleaning. Yet, at some of these, there is also a long layover and it wouldn’t take much for the driver (and/or conductor when present) to do at least a cursory tidy-up. I know people shouldn’t leave litter but the fact is that they do and it is unsightly. Litter picking at outlying termini would also give an opportunity for productive use of a layover that could be sacrificed if necessary to make up for delays incurrent on the outward journey. As an extreme example, the present (permanent) Southern timetable has a 27-minute turnaround at Tattenham Corner on a 5-car train.
We also have the situation (at present, anyway) on National Rail where we have some ticket offices that are still staffed for much of the day yet in some cases I do wonder if they generate any takings at all in that period. I am thinking of places like Coulsdon Town and Tattenham Corner in particular but there must be many others including parts of London Overground. In today’s largely-cashless society, if we must retain them, there is virtually no security issue present in allowing ticket clerks to perform other duties on the station – indeed that happens now as they need to service the ticket machines. I do not know if they fulfil other duties but I suspect not.
On the other side of the coin, I have recently been very impressed at Reigate how conductors (officially or not) seem to take responsibility for supervising the down-side ticket gates when their terminating train from Victoria arrives. Small things like that can make a huge difference in minimising cost and maximising service although one might question why on earth the trains from Victoria to Reigate have conductors in the first place.
The issue about automatic door opening is a bit difficult to fathom as, on Thameslink, ASLEF members accept this in the central section through London where the doors open automatically. I suspect the true answer partially lies in the fact that unions, contrary to the public perception, tend not to be coherent bodies and local branches decide what they consider acceptable on their ‘turf’. I also suspect that the talk of driverless trains hasn’t helped with potentially one of the main three repetitive duties on automatic lines being eliminated. If everything is going right then ‘all’ the drivers do during the journey is open the doors, close the doors (having established it is safe to do so) and press the two buttons to start the train (having established it is safe to do so). This is not to say I support the drivers on this issue (I don’t) but I can sort of understand why it might be an issue.
Jim Elson/PoP. The issue of automatic door opening has been an issue for some time. A few years ago, operational researchers were monitoring dwell times on the Jubilee line. They identified that the train would stop some time – in reality only a second or two – before the doors were opened. As a result they included a requirement for auto door open in a proposed upgrade of the ATP/ATO system. It was only when the logs from the system were analysed that it was discovered that the drivers were responding very quickly when the system granted permission to open the doors and the delay was caused by the ATO/ATP deciding that the train was indeed stopped in the right place. There is also an issue with the human factors for people who “attend” automatic systems. They have to have enough to do to maintain attention. On DLR it’s ticket checking. On LU it’s opening and closing doors. Otherwise I support the general thrust of both arguments. I sometimes what might have happened when electric lamps replaced gas lights if the lamplighters been in the RMT.
The actual stabling on the Bakerloo Line puts one train at Elephant & Castle platform overnight, though in an emergency you could stable 4 trains there, 2 in the sidings beyond the platforms, and 2 in the platforms themselves.
At Queen’s Park, there are 2 sidings each with space for 2 trains in Queen’s Park South Shed. There are 4 sidings north of Queen’s Park, although between Queen’s Park platforms and North Shed, only 3 trains are stabled there in rotation.
These trains plus London Road depot are capable of providing a Queen’s Park – Elephant & Castle service every 4 minutes, as is shown every 3 months when Network Rail carry out weekend engineering work on the Watford DC lines.
However none of these stabling locations has the facilities to carry out significant regular maintenance work on the trains, or to wash them. The line’s only wash road is at Stonebridge Park depot access roads. And in the timetable, some Stonebridge Park reversers are timetabled to get a wash as part of their reversing moves.
Closing the Bakerloo line north of Queen’s Park would only have the maintenance and wash road issues to be dealt with and nothing else. Though that in itself could indeed be quite a high-cost solution. Stonebridge Park depot was a compromise last minute cheap solution found when the Bakerloo line lost its Stanmore branch to form the Jubilee line.
Jim Elson/PoP/100andthirty. I had read somewhere that ASLEF argued successfully (obviously) that door opening gives the driver a bit more to do. Thameslink is different in that it’s only the short central section that has ATO, so most of time drivers are doing infinitely more than any driver is doing on eg the Central or Northern line.
The only times I experience a significant delay in doors opening on ATO lines is when the train fails to stop in the correct position. The CSDE (Correct Side Door Enable) prevents the driver from opening the doors and the driver then has to go through a process to override the CSDE including verifying that it is safe to do so. All that can take a few seconds. Exactly the same process would have to be gone through if doors were opened automatically.
It has been long planned to transfer Ealing Broadway to the Piccadilly Line once the full upgrade is completed, restricting Distict Line trains to the Richmond and Wimbledon branches. That leaves the main Ealing Depot off line, with empty working to and from as necessary. This will allow level access to trains at Acton Town and Ealing Common, where platforms currently serve both lines.
A similar arrangement could see Stonebridge Park Depot continue to serve the Bakerloo Line despite public services being confined south from Queen’s Park. This would avoid the current unsatisfactory step between tube trains and platforms north of there.
The Bakerloo, of course, used to run to Watford Junction and was cut back to Stonebridge Park (Sep 1982) before being re-extended to Harrow & Wealdstone in June 1984. The other issue with shutting that line would be that a mainline station – Marylebone – would lose its sole LU connection.
The North Shed at Queens Park has four roads, but the outer two of which are the through metals to continue north. They could all be used if the service was curtailed and, indeed, removing the interleaving of LO and LU services would appear to be very beneficial to both for timetabling purposes.
The sole positive aspect I could see, which is probably a non-starter on cost grounds, would be a closure to facilitate the line being rebored at a larger diameter and the sharp corners being removed, eg closing Paddington. As an aside one would have to feel for Charing Cross, having had three underground lines to possibly be reduced to just the one.
Alison W – a good comment. I think the PoP point is that capex is hard to get. Otherwise you have to ask – why not extend the Jubilee to Watford and close the overground to Euston.
Realistically Euston is going to be busy with HS2 and capex will be needed on its underground. Perhaps diverting the Overground underground saves that.
HS2 eastern extension is a farce because, to my mind, once you have done the expensive bit, tunnelling into London, terminus etc, you make the most of the costly infrastructure. The same logic applies to Bakerloo, you make the most of the costly Central London tubes.
Ah but capex is needed….and vision.
@PoP 12th Dec 15:52 regarding train utilisation and the Northern Line. First, just to clarify, I believe the 1995 Stock has 106 trains, not 105, so the current peak requirement of 97 trains is 91.5%, and using 98 would be 92.5%.
While I take the point that potentially only one more train would be needed (as explained in the comment), I disagree with the statement that train utilisation isn’t stretched on the Northern Line and that a proposed value of 93.3% (or even 92.5%) isn’t exceptionally high. The current 91.5% is already the highest in LU at the moment – although the 1996 Stock was slightly higher until recently (and the W&C pre-COVID, but as micro fleet with a very short line and very peaked operation is an exception) – see data below.
I believe that average utilisation for metros tends to be in the low to mid 80s and reaching or exceeding 90% is pretty rare. It is worth nothing that in many cases metro fleets are worked significantly harder than mainline railway fleets due to factors such as long service hours, short turnarounds, and generally more all-day service (i.e. less peaky).
So…I actually think the fleet utilisation for the Northern Line is already quite good, and squeezing another train out is not trivial, especially when talking about a uniform now >20-year-old fleet. (Obviously, LU had been planning to purchase additional trains to facilitate not only the Battersea extension but also future service increases, including from fully separating the services after upgrading Camden Town Station…)
From current LU working timetables available on the TfL website:
1972 Stock-Bakerloo: 31 of 36 (86.1%)
1973 Stock-Piccadilly: 78 of 86.5 (90.2%)
1992 Stock-Central: 77 of 85 (90.6%)
1992 Stock-W&C: 4 of 5 (80%, previously 5 of 5 for peak service, but sort of an outlier)
1995 Stock-Northern: 97 of 106 (91.5%)
1996 Stock-Jubilee: 57 of 63 (90.5%)
2009 Stock-Victoria: 41 of 47 (87.2%)
S7 Stock-Circle/H&C/District: 107 of 133 (80.5%, awaiting greater use with new signalling)
S8 Stock-Metropolitan: 48 of 59 (81.4%, awaiting greater use with new signalling)
ABProTrain,
Mea culpa regarding 106 not 105 trains on Northern line as made in one of my comments. And thanks for working out exact numbers for the various fleets. Both the Central line and Waterloo & City line in your table are artificially low because you fail to take into account trains on long term refurbishment due to the slightly-misnamed Central Line Improvement Project (CLIP) which actually includes the Waterloo & City line. So, in reality, the Northern line is actually on par with the Central line and the Waterloo & City line (admittedly an outlier as you point out) is currently effectively at 100% (4 out of 4).
Whilst not affecting the figures, the Northern line now has an additional wheel lathe which is located at Morden to make the planned level of utilisation easier to achieve. So yes, the figure for the Northern line is still high and marginally higher than most other lines but not exceptionally high.
I also take your point about a 20-year-old fleet but the fleet availability on LU does not tend to go down in mid-life. The Northern line also has a bit of an advantage in that it is only since ATO that all the fleet has been utilised to near its maximum extent. A bit like the SSR, the number of trains required for the line was based on the assumption the line would be ATO operated with corresponding higher frequencies but this did not happen until many years after the introduction of the fleet. A further point is that the Northern line (1995 stock) is better constructed than the Jubilee line (1996 stock) so a slightly higher availability should be achievable.
As a related point, it does seem that it would be extremely hard to increase frequencies further without the now-abandoned turnback at East Finchley. Whilst the Bank Capacity Improvement Project will still provide a number of passenger improvements (at great cost) it seems unlikely that the consequent promised increase in capacity (up to 28tph) on the Bank branch will now be possible even if passenger numbers recover.
PoP……. Pedantic point. I don ‘t believe there’s any evidence that the 1995 tube stock is “better constructed”. They all went down the same productions lines (Barcelona and Birmingham). Although numerically earlier, the 1995 tube stock was ordered later and took advantage of a few technical changes (Alstom’s own train control and monitoring system rather than Marconi’s – whatever happened to them?, IGBT three phase drive rather than GTO, and air suspension/ADtranz bogies rather than rubber suspension/Alstom’s).
100andthirty,
I was basing my comments on the 1996 stock article on Wikipedia. Perhaps I read too much into it or relied too much on Wikipedia. In particular:
The main technical differences arose because 1996 Stock was designed for “cheapest first cost”, while 1995 Stock was designed for “life cycle cost”, as Alstom had won the contract to act as the service provider and maintainer of this stock.
Regardless, I think 1996 stock is fundamentally less reliable because it has a seventh car added later and stock with later additions tend not to be as reliable as the original product. One only has to look at the coupling debacle a year or two ago (which did not affect the Northern line 1995 stock) to see that, on at least one occasion, 1996 stock can come to grief when 1995 stock was fine.
PoP
I don’t disagree with your last paragraph, but one also has to take into account maintenance and renewal cycles. I can’t imagine GEC-Alsthom (as it was then) decided to buy ADtranz bogies for the Northern line because they were lower whole life cost. I believe the decision was based on the track quality the bogie had to contend with. The different traction package simply arose because the technology had moved on. Both suffered from reliability issues in the early days.
Apropos the coupling failure, I believe that poor design was the root cause, but the extra load of the 7th car didn’t help. This means that the 1995 tube stock may still be at risk of a similar failure but that the maintainers more time to take corrective action before failure because of the lower load..
Fascinating discission. Thank you to the author and the contributors.
It seems that expanding the Bakerloo line would be one of the key reasons to justifying the cost of the fleet renewal.
One question that puzzles me in that discussion. The cost of the Bakerloo extension is often quoted at £3.1 billion. As a non-rail-expert, that seems incredibly high for a few miles and 4 stations compared to Crossrail (£20-ish billion for 75 miles and 41 stations). Is that a fair comparison? Why would the Bakerloo Line extension be so expensive?
Philip,
Easy. Running tunnels are cheap. Underground stations are very expensive.
The Bakerloo line extension would have not only have had four new stations, it would also have involved reconfiguring Elephant & Castle so it is the effective cost of five new stations and a bit of running tunnel plus the usual ancillaries (ventilation, trains, signalling etc.).
And really Crossrail is around 10 new stations and a further 31 that are refurbished and enhanced to some extent or barely altered as a result of Crossrail. In the latter category are Stratford and Heathrow Terminal 5 and a few others in the west where the major change has been step-free access. Adding step-free access to a surface station might be a multi-million pound cost per station but peanuts in the overall scheme of things.
Some of the high capital costs are down to rail capital projects costing ridiculously more (maybe 5x) than in our European neighbours for no particularly clearly good reason. This is something Alon Levy has covered in depth on their blog – https://pedestrianobservations.com/construction-costs/.
That said I suspect in the medium term London transport usage will recover, for hybrid working basing one’s office in the capital makes more sense than basing it outside the capital as infrastructure to London is better.
As per the above extending the bakerloo line from elephant and castle with 7.2km of tunnel and 13km on the surface to Hayes should cost £640 million in 2019 pounds assuming Nordic costs – https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/06/24/assume-nordic-costs-london-edition/
Is it technically possible to convert Baker Street – Queen’s Park branch of Bakerloo line into the fork of Jubilee line? I guess, they use pretty close tunnels nowadays, as I can see from the change across the platform At Baker Street. What are the downsides of this option? It appears OK to connect the piece of Bakerloo to Paddington if you just look at the tube map, but in reality it means a very long walk between the stations to get to any other line, and Bakerloo station is on the other side of the road from Paddington station.
For me the branch serving Maida Vale appears crucial. Does anyone think this piece can be actually closed? Brent Council is developing 1500+ new homes in South Kilburn, which all rely heavily on Bakerloo line at Queen’s Park and Kilburn Park Road (and overground is not a good option here to connect with the city center, as it has been already mentioned earlier), not to mention the established residential areas around Maida Vale station, which is equally far away from any other tube or overground line.
The current layout would allow the Bakerloo to take back the NW end of the Jubilee easily. To allow through running from the Jubilee to Queens Park would need new tunnels, so not at all likely.
Would closing the Bakerloo overload anything else? Probably not at current pandemic-affected demand levels. But maybe if we get back to something nearer pre-pandemic levels.
First consideration would be the Jubilee Line. It is (normally) heavily used over the section that parallels the Bakerloo Line from Baker St to Waterloo, and in itself not likely much relieved by Crossrail.
Then there are individual stations. Some very busy stations are served by the Bakerloo, including Baker St, Oxford Circus, Piccadilly, Charing Cross and Waterloo. Can they process their passengers effectively with the loss of a line to process them?
Crossrail considerably relieves the Bakerloo Line between Padd and Ox Circus, and specifically Ox Circ itself. So maybe Ox Circ is OK. But it would seem to do little to relieve the Jubilee Line in general, nor the other busy stations the Bakerloo Line currently serves. And if so much of Ox Circ’s current demand moves to Bond St, can the new Bond St cope with that?
Another way to look at this is that if you virtually close the Bakerloo Line in your mind, then would it be worth spending the relatively small amount of money required to keep it open to buy (back) that capacity? It would be cheap capacity in comparison to what we have been spending on new capacity. At some point capacity becomes so underused it isn’t worth maintaining. But would the Bakerloo really become that underused?
If you are going to close the Bakerloo Line to future-proof it, then shortly after Bond St Crossrail Station opens would be the very best time, given low current demand levels. But there is no money.
Btw, someone observed Google’s estimate that it takes 7 mins to walk from Marylebone to Baker St but only 4 mins to walk from Marylebone to Edgware Rd (D/C/HC). Having done both of these things many times, the former is a fair estimate, but the latter isn’t. Long ago, I could do it in 4 mins, if I half-ran, because EdgRd used to have an additional entrance at the east end of the platforms direct onto Marylebone Rd. Today, I reckon EdgRd as slightly further. Part of that is how time-consuming it is to cross Marylebone Road, where you can wait the best part of 2 mins for the lights.
The other problem is that the Bakerloo rolling-stock is really falling apart.
I used it Friday-Monday over the Easter weekend & .. oh dear: Lights not working, obvious patches on the outsides of the carriages, uneven floors, weird noises from underneath & so on.
Update on funding:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-62728974
Could be a lot worse, could be much better, but I note the usual politically driven statement: ” a commitment to “press forward a joint programme on the implementation of driverless trains on the London Underground”.” – when we already know that, for existing lines, it’s simply not worth it.
The driverless train commitment has no target dates, just a commitment from TfL to commit resources to work with the DfT to develop a plan/business case. A commitment to a talking shop?
I know it’s been a long dry summer and there’s not much long grass about but this does look as close as a kick into what’s left of the long grass as TfL could have hoped for.
Anyone knows what the “Northern Line extension” mean among the listed 11 DfT outlines for major projects?
https://www.newcivilengineer.com/latest/what-tfl-funding-deal-means-for-crossrail-hammersmith-bridge-and-londons-creaking-infrastructure-31-08-2022/
Is is a potential extension to Clapham Junction?
Is it a typo which should be instead about a potential split of the NL or instead the extension of the Bakerloo Line?
JH,
Undoubtedly wishful thinking. I strongly suspect this is not a typo but merely refers to any additional work that is part of the project. Pulbic perception of project completion (opened and available for the public to travel on) is not the same as full project completion. Probably hardly worth mentioning though.
Thanks PoP