With the Northern and Piccadilly lines, and parts of the Jubilee line, Tube Lines inherited some of the oldest infrastructure on the Underground network. Combined with a history of under investment and inconsistent maintenance, this has had significant impact on system reliability. As a result, around half of the £4.5 billion plus Tube Lines will invest over the first seven and half years of our contract will be used to maintain the current system. There is a huge amount of work required to ensure that the Tube is fully operational every morning. Each and every night of the week, thousands of Tube Lines employees and contractors are working across the network – walking the tracks to identify faults, checking cable connections, replacing signalling bulbs, cleaning the tunnels and generally ensuring the railway is fit and ready for service each day.
With the Northern and Piccadilly lines, and parts of the Jubilee line, Tube Lines inherited some of the oldest infrastructure on the Underground network. Combined with a history of under investment and inconsistent maintenance, this has had significant impact on system reliability. As a result, around half of the £4.5 billion plus Tube Lines will invest over the first seven and half years of our contract will be used to maintain the current system.
There is a huge amount of work required to ensure that the Tube is fully operational every morning. Each and every night of the week, thousands of Tube Lines employees and contractors are working across the network – walking the tracks to identify faults, checking cable connections, replacing signalling bulbs, cleaning the tunnels and generally ensuring the railway is fit and ready for service each day.
This army of night workers operates mainly between midnight and four in the morning, so it is essential that the right equipment and the right people are in the right place each night. This requires careful planning and close attention to detail in order to make the most of the limited time available to carry out such an extensive daily maintenance routine. This short, four-hour window is also the main time Tube Lines’ engineers have to carry out necessary upgrade work on the ageing infrastructure – refurbishing escalators that are over 40 years old, for example, or replacing parts of the signalling system that have been in place for almost 80 years. To date we have replaced or renewed over 90km of the 320km of track for which we are responsible, as well as replacing the axle boxes, axles, bearings and wheels on all of the carriages in use on the Piccadilly line and making countless other improvements. Most of the work to make this happen has taken place at night. Tube Lines is committed to ensuring that our stations and trains are clean and modern for our passengers. We have improved the cleaning method and frequency of all trains on the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines, as well as tackling deep-rooted problems such as graffiti. Similar initiatives have been set up to ensure that improved passenger communications, security and accessibility systems are introduced in a planned and structured way. All of this work carried out overnight, every night, is vital in helping us improve the travel experience of London Underground passengers on our lines.
This army of night workers operates mainly between midnight and four in the morning, so it is essential that the right equipment and the right people are in the right place each night. This requires careful planning and close attention to detail in order to make the most of the limited time available to carry out such an extensive daily maintenance routine.
This short, four-hour window is also the main time Tube Lines’ engineers have to carry out necessary upgrade work on the ageing infrastructure – refurbishing escalators that are over 40 years old, for example, or replacing parts of the signalling system that have been in place for almost 80 years.
To date we have replaced or renewed over 90km of the 320km of track for which we are responsible, as well as replacing the axle boxes, axles, bearings and wheels on all of the carriages in use on the Piccadilly line and making countless other improvements. Most of the work to make this happen has taken place at night.
Tube Lines is committed to ensuring that our stations and trains are clean and modern for our passengers. We have improved the cleaning method and frequency of all trains on the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines, as well as tackling deep-rooted problems such as graffiti. Similar initiatives have been set up to ensure that improved passenger communications, security and accessibility systems are introduced in a planned and structured way.
All of this work carried out overnight, every night, is vital in helping us improve the travel experience of London Underground passengers on our lines.