London railway upgrades – a progress report

One of the periodic reports from TfL has been released with details of ongoing network upgrades across the networks it controls. If you’ve ever wondered what goes on when the lines are closed at weekends, this will inform you.

A summary of the railway works:

Station Upgrades

Work on the new Northern line stations at Battersea and Nine Elms is on schedule and excavation to the first basement level is almost complete.

At Victoria station following the opening of the new ticket hall, work is under way in the remaining tunnels. Work also continues on the westbound link passage, the south ticket hall escalators and fit-out of the remaining lifts.

At Tottenham Court Road, step-free access from the street to all the station’s platforms was provided in February when five lifts opened to customers, and a further lift opened on 7 April.

At Bond Street, works to build four new lifts and two escalators are nearly complete. The station work is now planned to finish slightly later than originally planned, by the end of 2017.

At Bank, the new direct entrance to the Waterloo & City line is due to open in December – with 21st December pencilled in as the target date.

Also at Bank, for the rest of the station upgrade, the main building site access shaft is complete and tunnelling works started in May. All surface office buildings have been demolished, and they are preparing the site for foundation works for the new Cannon Street ticket hall to start next quarter.

At Vauxhall, new step free access was provided in August.

At Charing Cross, the modernisation of the Northern line ticket hall was completed ahead of schedule and the station re-opened on 26 June.

At Camden Town, TfL is negotiating the purchase of a closed school behind the station, which will become the new entrance following a major upgrade that’s being planned.

At Stratford, an early feasibility study is under way to address capacity issues, both immediately and in the long term.

At Elephant & Castle concept design is nearing completion for the new ticket hall. Plans for the redevelopment of the shopping centre will include the new station entrance.

At Finsbury Park, they have completed the northbound lift shaft civils work and continue southbound lift shaft works. Fit-out works are due to start at the end of 2017.

At Bromley-by-Bow, TfL continues the ticket hall refurbishment and the installation of two lifts.

At Tottenham Hale, works are under way to upgrade the ticket hall, station entrances and Network Rail interchange.

At Lancaster Gate, new lifts were installed, and the station opened 8-weeks earlier than planned, on 26th June.

Construction of new footbridges and lifts continues at Maryland, Manor Park and Seven Kings and will be installed in planned closures of the railway starting from August.

At Heathrow, TfL, in conjunction with the airport, is fitting Oyster and Contactless ticketing facilities ready for the commencement of TfL Rail/Elizabeth line in May 2018.

Line Upgrades

Track junction works at South Harrow now enables increased running speed and service reliability for this section of track.

Capacity upgrades increased the Victoria line peak service from 34 to 36 trains per hour (tph) in May.

An early works instruction was issued to Thales to allow a software fix at West Hampstead to be installed by the end of August and to safeguard delivery of the 31tph timetable on the Jubilee line in April 2019.

TfL recently awarded depots’ planning and design contracts to prepare the deep level tube for capacity upgrades.

Tunneling for the Northern line extension was delayed as the TBMs are passing over or under existing assets (sewers and power cables) or through historical ground obstructions such as piles and wells.The rate of progress with the southbound tunnel has increased since the TBM passed Nine Elms at the end of July and they expect it to broadly recover to schedule by the end of tunnelling.

The Barking riverside extension for the Overground saw preliminary designs submitted to Network Rail for approval. Main construction is expected to start next Summer.

Ballasted track renewal took place between Earl’s Court and Gloucester Road and a new sets of points was installed at Wimbledon in the first phase of works to renew assets in the area.

At Tower Hill, they completed track remodelling at the east end of the station to provide better service recovery options on the District line and reduce delays.

TfL has now replaced more than 1km of ballasted track with slab track on the Metropolitan line between Baker Street and Finchley Road. This slab track improves track drainage in the tight tunnels as well as increasing track life and reducing maintenance.

To reduce temperatures in tunnels on the Jubilee line between Baker Street and Green Park, there are major tunnel ventilation system upgrades on site at Park Square Gardens and Hay’s Mews. These works will take approximately one year.

A new Piccadilly line signalling control system operates between Cockfosters and Earl’s Court. Installation and commissioning of the infrastructure to extend the system to Turnham Green is complete, and they will start installation works on the Uxbridge branch next.

A new Piccadilly line control centre in west London continues on schedule.

A tender for the detailed design and build of the lifts at the western section of the Elizabeth line was issued in June and contract award remains planned for November 2017.

Testing by Network Rail of the new European Train Control System (ETCS) on the Heathrow branch continues, in readiness for Elizabeth line train testing from October ahead of Heathrow to Paddington services starting in May 2018.

On the sub-surface line signalling upgrade, testing on the first section is scheduled to commence in October 2017 with a view of going live date between April and August 2018.

Trains

A test was run using a sub-surface line S-Stock train on the automatic train control system at the Neasden Depot. When implemented, it takes over the bulk of the driving control, allowing trains to run closer together.

Twelve S-Stock trains have been fitted with the Thales ATC system to date.

They’re evaluating tenders for the Jubilee and Northern line additional trains (JNAT) project.

On the Central line, a contract for the supply of a replacement propulsion system was awarded following the resolution of a challenge from an unsuccessful bidder. In addition, they completed an overhaul of traction cards, which control train motors.

On the Jubilee line, the sixth refurbished train out of 63 is back in service.

Miscellaneous

Site work continues on Islington’s Bunhill scheme, where waste heat from the Northern line will be piped into homes. Construction of the pump house steelwork is almost complete.

A contract to design and build 71 wagons, which will carry materials for LU track renewals and maintenance works, was signed in late March. The new wagons will be introduced into service early in 2019.

Life extension works are complete on 24 of the 29 battery locomotives used for engineering works.

TfL is working with the London Boroughs of Sutton and Merton and the Greater London Authority (GLA) to identify a funding package for an extension to the Tramlink network at Sutton. Subject to the availability of a full funding package, they plan to submit an application by 2020.