The Waterloo & City line is reopening this morning

Good news for commuters into Waterloo heading to Bank, as the Waterloo and City line is reopening this morning, earlier than originally planned.

It was initially planned that the line would re-open on 21st June, but as ridership on the tube has increased by more than 20 per cent since 17th May, they’re bringing forward the reopening date to this morning. Entry and exit data for Waterloo station are also showing clear signs that while still considerably below pre-pandemic rates, passenger numbers are climbing rapidly.

Source – TfL Waterloo station entry/exit data

From today, the Waterloo & City line will run every five minutes Monday to Friday from 6am to 10am and 3:30pm to 7pm for the return home.

The line closed in March 2020, and since then Waterloo & City line drivers have been supporting the Central line so that TfL could run as many services on that line to enable social distancing.

Andy Lord, Managing Director of London Underground, said: “The reopening of the Waterloo & City line is a welcome step back towards normality for the City as well as for the rest of London. I am proud of the fantastic work done behind the scenes that has enabled us to bring the line back into service sooner than projected, and look forward to customers being able to use the full network for the first time since the pandemic began.”

Although it’s reopening as a peak-hours only service, that is likely to change later this year as the Waterloo and City line is also likely to get much busier when the Northern line stops calling at Bank station for around 4 months as part of the Bank station upgrade project.