A weekly round-up of London’s rail transport news…
Photos from the construction of the Piccadilly line extension
London Underground
London Underground will not run through night on New Year’s Eve due to Covid Standard
Plans for a Bakerloo line extension to Lewisham have been given a boost after the government agreed to begin the process of protecting the route from development. 853
Waterloo & City line closure likely to last more than a year SE1
Harrow Council defers discussion on Canons Park Station plans Harrow Times
Elizabeth line / Crossrail
Crossrail’s Elizabeth Line doubles number of test trains ITV
The Crossrail parts of Farringdon Station have completed construction activity, and are now in the process of being handed over to TfL. ianVisits
The second anniversary of Crossrail not opening Diamond Geezer
Mainline / Overground
Commuters urged to join virtual meeting with rail minister Chris Heaton-Harris over fast trains to London from Maidstone East and Otford Kent Online
Miscellaneous
Tube and bus usage jumped back to pre-second lockdown levels last week as Londoners rushed back to shops, pubs, and restaurants after a month of restrictions. CityAM
Set on the London Underground, the Web of Fear is one of those famously lost episode storys from Doctor Who, but a partially restored version is to be released by the BBC. ianVisits
The government has cut £1bn from the rail infrastructure budget following the chancellor’s Spending Review. BBC News
And finally: Sunflower Christmas tree on display at London Euston railway station Rail Advent
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The image above is from Dec 2017: Photos from the construction of the Piccadilly line extension
Thanks Ian.
I still think it’s a real shame they can’t use the downtime on the Waterloo and City line to fully automate it.
Two stations, four platforms and ten trains. Perhaps someone on a TfL internship could sort it out?
You really have no idea how complex and time consuming such a project would be do you?
Let alone where would the funding come from?
And as for the cost benefit analysis that would need doing to release the funding …
I thought this Government is going to try and cut CO2, so the chancellor Rishi Sunak will spend £27bn on roads but cut rail infrastructure budget by £1bn, even diesel-electric trains pollute less per passenger than cars, more roads means more cars and more pollution, the Welsh Government cancelled a major new road as it is incompatible with reducing CO2 to comply with the Paris accord.If PM BoJo wants to combat climate change he needs to sort out the car centric treasure and replace Rishi Sunak with a minister that has worked at a department that is responsible for reducing pollution like BEIS or DEFRA.
The two numbers are not comparable, as the roads budget is for all road spending, whereas the £1 billion cut in the rail budget is just the upgrades allowance, the total rail budget over the 5-year timeframe is far higher than the road budget, at £47 billion.
Automate the W&C? They still have to de-automate the announcements on trains arriving at Bank and Waterloo to change for it. Id such a simple thing can’t be done …..