The Anonymous Widower

‘Packed Trains And Delays On The New Misery Line’

The title of this post, is the same as that article on the BBC.

These four paragraphs introduce the article.

It is another weekday and thousands of people are using the London Underground’s Central line to get to work.

The problem is there aren’t many trains and the boards show a gap of 17 minutes between each one.

When the trains arrive, they are packed and many passengers cannot get on; there has been disruption nearly every day since Christmas on the Central line.

Welcome to the new misery line.

These four paragraphs outline the problems.

It needs 77 trains to operate a full service with a train every couple of minutes. Unfortunately, at the moment it is operating using 50 or so.

The problem is an unpredicted spate of faulty DC motors. These motors are obsolete and no longer made, and so have to be repaired and that takes time.

The trains are from the 1990s and transport bosses say they are not particularly reliable. The older trains on the Bakerloo line have a better performance; the Central line trains are the workhorses of the capital and they have been hammered.

They are heavily used in different environments and that adds to the wear and tear.

This is so unlike London Underground.

According to the Wikipedia entry for the 1992 Stock trains, the trains entered service in 1993 and had their first refurbishment in 2012. Wikipedia says this about the 2012 refurbishment.

From 2011 to 2012, the Central line 1992 Stock units underwent a refresh of both the interior and exterior. Some of the noticeable changes included the addition of the new “Barman” seat moquette, new brighter interior lighting and the installation of new window frames. The front of the driving cabs were also refreshed. This included repairing water ingress and replacing a large number of parts with a much simpler design, saving costs on future work and cleaning up the appearance of the front end. The new-style front end can be easily identified by the new red panelling installed on most units instead of the original grey. The refresh came after nearly twenty years of continuous service on the Central line.

Note.

1. This looks like a fairly typical refurbishment.
2. Boris Johnson was mayor, but it was probably more important that Peter Hendy was the London Transport Commissioner.

I don’t remember any problems being reported in the press, railway media or on BBC London.

These two paragraphs from the Wikipedia entry describe the current refurbishment.

Since 2019, TfL is doing a major refurbishment on the Central line units as part of the Central Line Improvement Programme (CLIP). This includes a complete overhaul of the interior and adding new features such as new wheelchair spaces, PIS (Passenger Information Screens), and CCTV installed throughout the train. The London Underground corporate livery will also be repainted on these units as well as the replacement of the original DC motors with new AC motors. It takes approximately 10 weeks to refurbish a train. Refurbishment is planned to be completed in 2029. Work started in 2019 and has been heavily delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and financial reasons.

The first upgraded train was previewed in passenger service on 24 November 2023.

Note.

1. In total there are ninety trains to refurbish; which includes 85 for the Central Line and five for the Waterloo & City Line.
2. Ninety trains is 900 weeks of work or seventeen years if trains are refurbished one at a time.

In the November 2017 Edition of Modern Railways, there is an article which is entitled Central Line Improvement programme.

These two paragraphs outline the programme.

In summer this year it was confirmed Bombardier had been awarded a £112.1 million contract to supply new traction motors and traction control equipment for the 1992 stock trains operating on the Central Line. But this is just one part of a £314 million programme to improve the 85-strong fleet.

The 1992 stock trains are one of the least reliable fleets on the London Underground network, and LU says almost £8 million per year is spent repairing and overhauling the trains’ motors and containing the frequency of motor damage to below 200 per year. With replacement under the Deep Tube Upgrade Programme (DTUP) not planned until the early 2030s, LU has therefore initiated the Central Line Improvement Programme (CLIP) to improve the fleet’s overall reliability and provide an improved passenger experience, as well as to meet current accessibility requirements.

Note.

1. It was known that the motors were a problem, when the contract was awarded in 2017.
2. A cost of £8 million was also put to keeping the motors going.

The two paragraphs explain the need for AC traction.

The 1992 stock fleet was the last procured by LU to use direct current (DC) motors and the first to use electronic rather than electro-mechanical control systems. The aim of the upgrade is to reduce customer-affecting failures attributed to the Central Line fleet by 14% and to eliminate a quarter of cancellations due to trains being unavailable.

Other benefits include lower fleet maintenance costs, reduced energy consumption, which should in turn reduce peak tunnel temperatures, and improved acceleration of heavily-loaded trains.

Bombardier seem to have come up with a sensible solution.

• Use a solution based on the AC traction systems of the Bombardier-built trains for the Victoria and sub-surface lines.
• The traction systems will be manufactured in Sweden.

The article also states that the trains’ data transmission system is a very unreliable component.

In the last three decades of the last century, Artemis planned similar upgrades for companies like BAe Systems, Hunting Engineering, Lockheed-Martin, McDonnell-Douglas, except that they were upgrading aircraft in the main.

I do wonder, if this upgrade is going to take such a long time, that their project management is not top-notch.

Conclusion

It looks to me, that the Central Line Improvement programme might still be underway, when Siemens are ready to start building new Central Line trains after completing the orders for the Piccadilly and Bakerloo Lines.

My project management knowledge says, that a really good project manager could improve the future for customers of the Misery Line.

February 14, 2024 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | 1992 Stock, Artemis, Bombardier, Central Line, London Underground, Project Management, Waterloo And City Line