Block closures between Waterloo and Finchley Road

[bicbasher]

TfL have announced tunnel lining repairs on the Jubilee from June, right up until December 2014.

16 June 2013
26 August
6, 12, 13 October
25-30 December
12 January 2014
1-2 February
1, 8, 9 March
18-21 April
15 June
17 August
16 November
25-30 December

[abe]

According to City AM, this is because of damage to tunnel lining segments caused by acidic groundwater (in some areas at pH2 - the equivalent of lemon juice or vinegar). TfL has been asked by the Lib Dems in the GLA to investigate having a block closure of the line between Finchley Road and Waterloo for 30 days to get the work completed in one go.

[railtechnician]

Apr 30, 2013 9:20:46 GMT abe said:

According to City AM, this is because of damage to tunnel lining segments caused by acidic groundwater (in some areas at pH2 - the equivalent of lemon juice or vinegar). TfL has been asked by the Lib Dems in the GLA to investigate having a block closure of the line between Finchley Road and Waterloo for 30 days to get the work completed in one go.

If the line has to be closed anywhere one occasion is better than many and a one month closure properly planned and implemented would allow any other planned works to progress possibly relieving the travelling public or even more planned pain!

[norbitonflyer]

They said on the BBC that they were practicing techniques on the redundant tunnel at Charing Cross, so I guess the problem is the section of tunnel built in the 1970s.

Is it still possible to run trains in service off the Stanmore branch onto the Bakerloo? This would allow a service to be maintained to Swiss Cottage and St Johns Wood, and reduce crowding at Baker Street, when this section is closed.

[DWS]

No, jubilee line trains can not run on the Bakerloo Line as the trip clocks were removed from the 1996 stock with the introduction of the new signalling system on the Jubilee line.

[Ben]

Well this is all a bit rubbish isn't it. Yet two more examples of how the current set up in London is inferior to that offered decades ago; its going to take longer, and theres less flexibility to mitigate hardship.

[castlebar]

@ Ben+1
"suits know best" even if a million pax know otherwise

[castlebar]

@ Ben+1
"suits know best" even if a million pax know otherwise

[Deleted]

I can’t see what all the fuss is about. You can get the Met from Finchley Road to Baker Street and change on the Bakerloo, Oxford Circus for Bond Street, Piccadilly Circus for Green Park, Embankment for Westminster and Waterloo for the rest of the Jubilee. The 13 bus links Swiss Cottage and St. John’s Wood with Finchley Road and Baker Street, you don’t even need replacement buses.

Closing at weekends will cause a lot less disruption than closing for the whole of August as Caroline Pigeon suggested. Also that will mean that resources already allocated for engineering works on other lines in August will not have to be diverted and the scheduled work postponed.

In this case suits know best, passengers and politicians only see what they want to see.

[Deleted]

It would seem the section in question is just Baker St - Green Park rather than the ex-Bakerloo section, some sections of the concrete tunnel between Baker St - Bond St S/B have had metal bracing on the tunnel walls for a few months at least now. This corrosion problem also caused the tunnel telephone wires to become detached and wrapped around a train back a couple of years ago.

[Deleted]

Apr 30, 2013 18:55:16 GMT @delboy200 said:

It would seem the section in question is just Baker St - Green Park rather than the ex-Bakerloo section, some sections of the concrete tunnel between Baker St - Bond St S/B have had metal bracing on the tunnel walls for a few months at least now. This corrosion problem also caused the tunnel telephone wires to become detached and wrapped around a train back a couple of years ago.

LR have a report on this:  www.londonreconnections.com/2013/acid-works/

So, it seems that concrete segments as well as cast iron are affected?

The problem it seems is that air is pumped into the ground by the action of passing trains. In areas where there are saturated pockets containing iron pyrites, this air caused a reaction whose products include sulphuric acid. LU have ordered a special grade of very high chromium steel for the repairs.

I wonder if LU will seek to hermetically seal the new linings to stop or slow further acid producing reactions.

[railtechnician]

Apr 30, 2013 15:39:51 GMT aslefshrugged said:

I can’t see what all the fuss is about. You can get the Met from Finchley Road to Baker Street and change on the Bakerloo, Oxford Circus for Bond Street, Piccadilly Circus for Green Park, Embankment for Westminster and Waterloo for the rest of the Jubilee. The 13 bus links Swiss Cottage and St. John’s Wood with Finchley Road and Baker Street, you don’t even need replacement buses.

Closing at weekends will cause a lot less disruption than closing for the whole of August as Caroline Pigeon suggested. Also that will mean that resources already allocated for engineering works on other lines in August will not have to be diverted and the scheduled work postponed.

In this case suits know best, passengers and politicians only see what they want to see.

I disagree, I think today's LUL no longer has either the engineering expertise or management expertise that it once had and it seems to have become the norm to screw the travelling public which in bygone days was an unforgivable cardinal sin. Closing at weekends is very bad for home grown tourism especially as LUL has become so bad at dissemminating correct and appropriate information to those that require it.

For anyone who works at LUL getting around London should be a doddle regardless of misinformation and line closures, the trouble is that most travellers do not work for LUL!

Of course it suits the unions to have weekend closures, it shouldn't suit LUL but of course the vast majority of travellers are captives to a large extent and many have already paid their fares in advance so have to put up with cancellation and disruption with no compensation whatever for the poorer service performance.

One sustained closure properly managed with 24/7 shift working is the fairest and least disruptive way to get the work done. There really should be no need to postpone scheduled work elsewhere or on other lines, work has to be planned months in advance to comply with SABRE so it would've been no more difficult to plan for a single closure than successive closures, indeed it should have been much easier as many fewer days of closure would be required. As for resources, they have to be allocated to the work but in the same way allocating them to a single closure should be easier than allocating them to multiple closures and would make them more available for other works.

As ever what is very visible is inefficiency at best and perhaps incompetence at worst. I'm certain that former LT engineers and operating managers are turning in their graves at what has become of what was once a decent public service.

[railtechnician]

Apr 30, 2013 18:55:16 GMT @delboy200 said:

It would seem the section in question is just Baker St - Green Park rather than the ex-Bakerloo section, some sections of the concrete tunnel between Baker St - Bond St S/B have had metal bracing on the tunnel walls for a few months at least now. This corrosion problem also caused the tunnel telephone wires to become detached and wrapped around a train back a couple of years ago.

Tunnel telephone wires on most lines corrode, snap during traffic and cause track/signal failures, it's an occupational hazard not particular to the Jubilee line. Metal bracing was what was used in 1962 at Old Street where the cast iron segments were being eaten away and weakened, it was 30 years before the tunnel was widened into a new tunnel built around it.
Chemical action on concrete in subterranean London is not a new problem, it was certainly a known issue in the 1970s when the original Fleet/Jubilee tunnels were built and the Jubilee is not the only line with sections of concrete tunnel so one might expect similar issues elsewhere depending upon the surrounding environment.

It rather sounds as though LU have been well aware of the problem so I should be surprised that they couldn't come up with a less disruptive solution but quite frankly I'm not surprised at all.

[Deleted]

May 1, 2013 2:54:27 GMT dw54 said:

LU have ordered a special grade of very high chromium steel for the repairs.

I wonder if LU will seek to hermetically seal the new linings to stop or slow further acid producing reactions.

Not quite - I said that was how they ended up tackling the problem on the Northern Line back in the 1980s. Technology has moved on since then though, so I wasn't expecting them to use Chromium Steel again.

I've got a bit more information this morning on the specific process they're actually using on the Jubilee from some LR readers, but I'm still trying to piece together the full details. Looks like with the Jubilee they don't need to replace the invert (the bit the track sits on) so rather than a tunnel shield they've actually built a ring-replacement train for the job. This will replace one or two concrete segments each night with spangly new Spheroidal Graphite Iron segments, which are much better suited to the ground conditions in that area.

I'm going to try and wrangle a bit more info out of TfL and Tube Lines.

[Deleted]

May 1, 2013 9:12:16 GMT @johnbull said:

May 1, 2013 2:54:27 GMT dw54 said:

LU have ordered a special grade of very high chromium steel for the repairs.

I wonder if LU will seek to hermetically seal the new linings to stop or slow further acid producing reactions.

Not quite - I said that was how they ended up tackling the problem on the Northern Line back in the 1980s. Technology has moved on since then though, so I wasn't expecting them to use Chromium Steel again.

I've got a bit more information this morning on the specific process they're actually using on the Jubilee from some LR readers, but I'm still trying to piece together the full details. Looks like with the Jubilee they don't need to replace the invert (the bit the track sits on) so rather than a tunnel shield they've actually built a ring-replacement train for the job. This will replace one or two concrete segments each night with spangly new Spheroidal Graphite Iron segments, which are much better suited to the ground conditions in that area.

I'm going to try and wrangle a bit more info out of TfL and Tube Lines.

My bad - speed reading faster than the old cranium can digest - oops!

But my question about hermetically sealing the affected area still stands. There's also a question of whether sacrificial anodes would help, as are used to protect bridges, oil rigs, water heater tanks, etc.

[Deleted]

May 1, 2013 6:44:30 GMT railtechnician said:

Of course it suits the unions to have weekend closures

Kindly explain how it “suits the unions”.

There’s no reduction of staff booking on when we have special working, station staff at closed stations spend their shift dealing with frustrated passengers who haven’t read the notices that have been up all week while train crew get sent by taxi or stuck on replacement buses to pick up their trains at remote locations.

With the Met, Bakerloo and local buses all available closing at weekends will cause far less disruption than shutting down for a whole month, imagine the chaos at Baker Street at 08:30 on a Monday morning as passengers changed lines.

[railtechnician]

May 1, 2013 11:04:00 GMT aslefshrugged said:

May 1, 2013 6:44:30 GMT railtechnician said:

Of course it suits the unions to have weekend closures

Kindly explain how it “suits the unions”.

There’s no reduction of staff booking on when we have special working, station staff at closed stations spend their shift dealing with frustrated passengers who haven’t read the notices that have been up all week while train crew get sent by taxi or stuck on replacement buses to pick up their trains at remote locations.

With the Met, Bakerloo and local buses all available closing at weekends will cause far less disruption than shutting down for a whole month, imagine the chaos at Baker Street at 08:30 on a Monday morning as passengers changed lines.

Unions love disruption, some would say it is almost their sole raison d'etre these days.

Doing the work in one hit should not take a whole month, when multiple separate closures are arranged much time is lost in setting up to start work at the end of traffic hours and clearing down and packing up for the start of traffic hours, time that is more usefully spent doing actual work in a single continuous closure period.

[Deleted]

May 1, 2013 22:26:18 GMT railtechnician said:

Unions love disruption, some would say it is almost their sole raison d'etre these days.

Doing the work in one hit should not take a whole month, when multiple separate closures are arranged much time is lost in setting up to start work at the end of traffic hours and clearing down and packing up for the start of traffic hours, time that is more usefully spent doing actual work in a single continuous closure period.

Really? RMT haven’t had a strike day since January 2011, ASLEF go on strike once a year on Boxing Day and TSSA went on strike for the first time on the Tube since the General Strike over ticket office closures in December 2010. In the last two years almost every dispute has been settled by negotiation, if disruption is the unions’ raison d’etre as you claim then they’re failing miserably. Unless you subscribe to the Gospel according to the Daily Mail who claim that it’s strike day everyday!

Again I ask, how exactly would shutting down the Jubilee for however long it takes during the weekdays when demand is at a maximum be better than closing at weekends when demand is less? It might be more expensive, I have no idea of the costs for each option, but it will cause significantly less disruption to passengers.

[fleetline]

Seems some people only think peak happens at the weekend. Weekday peaks are where most people travel so its is why we tend to have weekend closures. Not that fits with some posters 'theories/political outlook'.

[Deleted]

Actually Sundays seem the busiest day of the week. There may not be the rush hour crush but I would be interested to know the total people traveling on a Sunday vs the total people traveling on a Tuesday

[Deleted]

May 26, 2013 11:44:36 GMT @aliturk said:

Actually Sundays seem the busiest day of the week. There may not be the rush hour crush but I would be interested to know the total people traveling on a Sunday vs the total people traveling on a Tuesday

The Jubilee runs a train every two minutes in the peak, every six minutes on a Sunday so obviously they appear three times more crowded.

[Deleted]

Additionally there’s less road traffic at a weekend. But there are less operational bus lanes and parking restrictions are relaxed at weekends which can in themselves create delays. But obtaining parking restrictions to create bus stands is easier and getting staff & buses to assist is easier process too.

Just before the Olympics we were called to assist on the Central line when contractors burst a watermain at Old Ford. The weekday traffic in East London was horrible. In fact after setting off from Stratford I was beaten to Leytonstone by two pedestrians one of which was a pregnant lady. The point was we all got nowhere fast!

We have done a few weekday closures mainly during school holidays. And theres much to be said for one week closures from an engineering point of view. But the timing needs to be right. In the summer we get a lot of visitors to London, so care needs to be taken to choose the right moment to do this work.

Although closing the line at weekends might seem undesirable, the consequences of doing this during the week are far less desirable.

[North End]

May 1, 2013 6:57:39 GMT railtechnician said:

Apr 30, 2013 18:55:16 GMT @delboy200 said:

It would seem the section in question is just Baker St - Green Park rather than the ex-Bakerloo section, some sections of the concrete tunnel between Baker St - Bond St S/B have had metal bracing on the tunnel walls for a few months at least now. This corrosion problem also caused the tunnel telephone wires to become detached and wrapped around a train back a couple of years ago.

Tunnel telephone wires on most lines corrode, snap during traffic and cause track/signal failures, it's an occupational hazard not particular to the Jubilee line. Metal bracing was what was used in 1962 at Old Street where the cast iron segments were being eaten away and weakened, it was 30 years before the tunnel was widened into a new tunnel built around it.
Chemical action on concrete in subterranean London is not a new problem, it was certainly a known issue in the 1970s when the original Fleet/Jubilee tunnels were built and the Jubilee is not the only line with sections of concrete tunnel so one might expect similar issues elsewhere depending upon the surrounding environment.

It rather sounds as though LU have been well aware of the problem so I should be surprised that they couldn't come up with a less disruptive solution but quite frankly I'm not surprised at all.

I can't see any prospect of an extended closure for this one.

If you go for a block suspension between Finchley Road and Waterloo, you are limiting the service that can be run between Waterloo and Stratford because there is only one crossover at Waterloo. In reality the best that could be achieved is 3 to 4 minutes. This is simply not enough to keep up with demand at Canary Wharf during weekdays.

As for diverting trains via the Bakerloo, the signalling systems on the two lines are not compatible, 1996 stock is not cleared for the Bakerloo Line (and would be too long for the platforms in 7-car form). 72 stock could not run up the Jubilee Line as it is not fitted with TBTC. If you were physically able to send 72 stock up towards Stanmore, you would then have less trains towards Queen's Park, so even if the Jubilee still had its old signalling the idea doesn't really work.

My understanding is this is an isolated issue affecting a small section of tunnel. It's similar to the Old Street issue, however that involved cast-iron segments whereas my understanding is the Bond Street section involves concrete segments.

[Deleted]

May 26, 2013 12:07:40 GMT aslefshrugged said:

May 26, 2013 11:44:36 GMT @aliturk said:

Actually Sundays seem the busiest day of the week. There may not be the rush hour crush but I would be interested to know the total people traveling on a Sunday vs the total people traveling on a Tuesday

The Jubilee runs a train every two minutes in the peak, every six minutes on a Sunday so obviously they appear three times more crowded.

So what are the figures? You can't say trains appear 3 times more crowded because of longer gaps. If there happened to be a 6 minute gap at 1130 on the JLE on a Tuesday, you hardly notice it passenger-wise. Even if trains happen to be passing every 3 minutes at the weekend or 2 minutes - which they often do despite what service levels are planned to be, it is consistently much more crowded throughout the weekend day.

[causton]

www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/modesoftransport/londonunderground/keyfacts/13172.aspx

Average number of passengers on the Jubilee line:

Weekdays: 405,878
Saturdays: 271,739
Sundays: 182,480

Speaks for itself, no?

[Chris M]

No, because that isn't the point that is being made.
Weekdays carry far more people, but the loadings are heavily biased to the peaks whereas the loadings through the weekend are far more even. What is needed to prove or disprove @aliturk's point is the average ridership per hour figures for each hour.

[d7666]

If you go for a block suspension between Finchley Road and Waterloo, you are limiting the service that can be run between Waterloo and Stratford because there is only one crossover at Waterloo. In reality the best that could be achieved is 3 to 4 minutes. This is simply not enough to keep up with demand at Canary Wharf during weekdays.

And doing that also cuts off 96 stock on the north end of the line from Stratford depot.

Yes 96 stock can and does stable at Neasden and Stanmore and yes artisans are at both locations, but no significant planned maintenance or unplanned repairs could be carried out. Neasden has not the space, the facilities or the resources to deal with 96 stock in the quantity needed for an exercise of this nature. And isolating 96 stock away from home depot for an extended block will only cause the north side of the block to degrade through failures over time, and when reconnected the depot has a whole heap of back logged work to catch up with.

I.m not sure even using road low loaders to move serious casualties around would work either, Stratford could re-assemble an incoming broken train, but would anywhere else be able to do for a good replacement train that was split for road movement and make it work again ? I doubt it. Not that anyone would seriously consider road movement anyway,

In this case I think no block is the right solution, disruptive that it is.

--
Nick

[towerman]

Back before the JLE opened,the Bakerloo was closed between Piccadilly Circus & Elephant for about 6 months for repairs to the tunnel lining under the Thames(that's when 3257 met its' end)as there was insuffient space at Queen's Park & Stonebridge Park for all the stock(London Rd was also closed for the duration)4 Bakerloo trains were stabled at Neasden,the trains were changed round between Stonebridge & Neasden every week night(2 trains per night)going to Neasden late evening & from Neasden early morning before first SB Jubilee.

[Deleted]

May 29, 2013 11:50:02 GMT @aliturk said:

May 26, 2013 12:07:40 GMT aslefshrugged said:

The Jubilee runs a train every two minutes in the peak, every six minutes on a Sunday so obviously they appear three times more crowded.

So what are the figures? You can't say trains appear 3 times more crowded because of longer gaps. If there happened to be a 6 minute gap at 1130 on the JLE on a Tuesday, you hardly notice it passenger-wise. Even if trains happen to be passing every 3 minutes at the weekend or 2 minutes - which they often do despite what service levels are planned to be, it is consistently much more crowded throughout the weekend day.

I beg to respectfully disagree, even during off-peak times (such as 1130 on a Tuesday) the jubilee line is still very popular (especially with tourists) and whenever I've had a wait of 4 minutes instead of 2 minutes I can assure you that it makes quite a noticeable difference to the Jubilee line. Your argument may be quite reasonable for outer stretches of the tube network due to the strong inbound and outbound tidal flows in the peaks, but it's not like that in Zones 1 and 2. I don't know if the gap is really 3 times bigger on the weekend, it feels more like they're every 4 minutes to be honest, and that does make the jubilee feel pretty busy at the weekend, but it's really not as bad as a weekday, considering the difference in frequencies.

[Deleted]

May 30, 2013 22:13:26 GMT d7666 said:

If you go for a block suspension between Finchley Road and Waterloo, you are limiting the service that can be run between Waterloo and Stratford because there is only one crossover at Waterloo. In reality the best that could be achieved is 3 to 4 minutes. This is simply not enough to keep up with demand at Canary Wharf during weekdays.

And doing that also cuts off 96 stock on the north end of the line from Stratford depot.

Yes 96 stock can and does stable at Neasden and Stanmore and yes artisans are at both locations, but no significant planned maintenance or unplanned repairs could be carried out. Neasden has not the space, the facilities or the resources to deal with 96 stock in the quantity needed for an exercise of this nature. And isolating 96 stock away from home depot for an extended block will only cause the north side of the block to degrade through failures over time, and when reconnected the depot has a whole heap of back logged work to catch up with.

I.m not sure even using road low loaders to move serious casualties around would work either, Stratford could re-assemble an incoming broken train, but would anywhere else be able to do for a good replacement train that was split for road movement and make it work again ? I doubt it. Not that anyone would seriously consider road movement anyway,

In this case I think no block is the right solution, disruptive that it is.

--
Nick

I am not advocating a lengthy block closure, but assuming LUL did decide to blockade part of the line, I would imagine that fleet engineering would not be a significant issue. With a quarter of the line out of commission (and as pointed out above, a reduced level of service elsewhere due to lack of reversing opportunities), the line should have sufficient spare trains for any eventuality.

And of course the line did operate as two separate entities for some months when the extension first opened. From recollection (and I will stand corrected here!) the first part was to North Greenwich then Waterloo before through running commenced about a year later. So this does prove that LUL are capable of running the line in two separate parts for an extended period of time.