£100m cost of Tube fiasco 27 July 2001

by Dick Murray, Transport Editor The ailing Tube network was rocked by another fiasco today as it was revealed the signalling system on the supposedly state-of-the-art Jubilee Line will have to be replaced at a cost of more than £100 million.

The Jubilee has been plagued by almost daily breakdowns virtually - almost all signal-related - since the 11-mile Extension from Westminster to Stratford opened for the new millennium.

London Underground had promised the signalling system would be the world's most advanced, with trains "talking" to each other via on-board computer links. The plan was eventually to run more than 36 trains an hour in each direction.

But the highly-complex system had never been tried on a metro system and engineers could not get it to work properly. In desperation to get the line open, they junked the high technology and installed a bastardised version, combining old and new apparatus.

The line opened, but the old and the new did not match properly and it was known then that, at some stage ,they would have to rip it all out and start again. Now ministers are understood to be debating whether to try to sue Westinghouse Rail Systems, which installed the signalling.

JLE commuters will have to switch to other lines or modes of travel while the signalling is replaced. The line is controlled by a signalling centre at Neasden, partly built by the Canadian firm, Alcatel. It is so complex there are more lines of communication coming from the Neasden box than operated by the entire Canadian air traffic control system.

The plan under the "makeshift" signalling system was to run 24 trains an hour in each direction rising to 27 by 2003.

LU, however, has struggled to meet the target of 24 trains partly because of persistent computer problems at Neasden and recurrent signal failures at the Stratford end of the line.

In the 12 months to March, signal and points failures on the line totalled 444, a rate of more than one a day.

LU says one of the problems is that the fail-safe system governing the signals is so sensitive that if there is a "glitch" , however small, it turns the signals to red along an entire section of route, halting all the trains.

There is speculation that ministers have leaked this story now to give added emphasis to their part-privatisation-plan for the Tube which, they claim, would be the quickest way to provide billions of pounds investment to improve the network. The Jubilee Line Extension - costing £ 3.5billion, more than double the original estimate and 18 months late in opening - turned a previously reliable line into one of the worst lines in the network.

This week, MP Tom Brake, the Lib-Dem spokesman on London transport, revealed that LU's own statistics showed a 200 per cent increase in the number of delays of 15 minutes or more on the Jubilee Line over the last four years.

This latest scandal only serves to highlight the increasing shambles of the state of the Tube which carries more than three million people every day.

http://www.thisislondon.com/dynamic/news/story.html?in_review_id=426608&in_review_text_id=375652

-- Anonymous, July 27, 2001

Answers

Response to UK - £100m cost of Tube fiasco

Those big rail crashes last year were signal related ::::-§

-- Anonymous, July 27, 2001

Response to UK - £100m cost of Tube fiasco

Hi Spider... yes, this may be true although I was able to find only one posted train crash on GICC that occurred on the above mentioned Jubilee Line, that being: Stafford station near Hatfield. The other reports that I found happened near: Partick Station, Torness Power Station between Edinburgh and London and, Glasgow Central Station from Euston to Glasgow. Possible (hasty) conclusion...maybe the signal problems extend well beyond the Jubilee Line from Westminster to Stratford.

-- Anonymous, July 27, 2001

Response to UK - £100m cost of Tube fiasco

Finnish train passengers on their way to Turku harbour missed their ferry yesterday (24 April) as the trains between Toijala and Turku were delayed due to a problem in the signalling system.

GICC

A faulty red signal at Glenbrook station already has been acknow- ledged as part of the tragedy. The drivers of the two trains radioed to Penrith signal box for instructions from the train controller on duty on whether to proceed from the signal.

. . .

Norwegian rail controllers tried to telephone two train drivers to tell them to halt before a head-on collision that killed 20 to 30 people but had a wrong list of numbers.....Officials said it was unclear why the two trains were on the same track, each travelling toward each other at about 80 kph (50 mph). They collided on a curve about 160 km (100 miles) north of Oslo. Sixty-eight people survived, some with severe injuries.....He said that there were no signs of technical faults on the signaling system, meaning that one of the drivers drove past red signals. Both drivers were believed to have died.

. . .

Railworks Director Steinar Killi alleges that the signals on the Roeros line functioned properly before the catastrophic train crash on Tuesday. This means that one of the trains went through a red light.

. . .

A faulty red signal at Glenbrook station already has been acknow- ledged as part of the tragedy.

GICC

It's been revealed that an airport express train derailed at Gardermoen on Tuesday evening after the driver went through a stop signal. No one was injured. The train suffered only slight damage.

GICC

TUBE commuters suffered yet more delays today following a signal failure at Aldgate which disrupted services during the height of the morning peak period, writes Dick Murray.

GICC

-- Anonymous, July 29, 2001