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4000 drivers at an average of around £70K per year is not chump change (£280M) + employer costs for staff. Out of a budget of maybe £5B per year, it is not insi

4000 drivers at an average of around £70K per year is not chump change (£280M) + employer costs for staff. Out of a budget of maybe £5B per year, it is not insignificant but I would expect there are other areas where savings could more easily be gained. Maintenance is crazy due to the short maintenance hours and therefore everyone getting paid enhanced rates to work 0:00 to 04:00. Significantly modernizing signalling and control would be expensive but would probably back back over time. A few years back I was in a control room in a tube station and saw some steampunk looking machine that we assumed was related to the old destination boards on the station, which were long gone but the machine was still operational and left alone. Why? Because who would risk breaking something just to remove some random old piece of kit!

Mauricebranagh 5y ago
A few years ago my father did some consulting work for LU and he motioned that a lot of the pre war equipment had far less faults that the modern 1980's stuff.
- KptMarchewa 5y ago
  It also had much less requirements and probably required more maintanence. You can think this type of claims everywhere; and pretty nowhere those are true.
  - DiggyJohnson 5y ago
    For what it’s worth you ought to be careful arguing your position considering that GP has a second-hand account and you only have a general principle. I see that you hedged your point, and I'm not even disagreeing with you at all. Just an interesting thing to consider.
pydry 5y ago
They'd want it even if it cost the same or more. It's the ability to break strikes they're after.
speapr 5y ago
Frankly, it is chump change. You put your finger on the real issue with the London Underground - the maintenance needs which are onerous and prevent the trains from running overnight on most nights.
tinus_hn 5y ago
That kind of kit has reliability properties that are hard to imagine. There is a number of things that can go wrong and that gear basically guarantees that if you pass a green sign the track is free. 100% bug free and the only glitches there are is that if a bulb burns out, the system doesn’t run until it is replaced. You can rebuild that kind of system but it’ll be exactly the same hardware behind a more modern looking panel.

Mauricebranagh 5y ago

A few years ago my father did some consulting work for LU and he motioned that a lot of the pre war equipment had far less faults that the modern 1980's stuff.

KptMarchewa 5y ago
It also had much less requirements and probably required more maintanence. You can think this type of claims everywhere; and pretty nowhere those are true.
- DiggyJohnson 5y ago
  For what it’s worth you ought to be careful arguing your position considering that GP has a second-hand account and you only have a general principle. I see that you hedged your point, and I'm not even disagreeing with you at all. Just an interesting thing to consider.

pydry 5y ago

They'd want it even if it cost the same or more. It's the ability to break strikes they're after.

speapr 5y ago

Frankly, it is chump change. You put your finger on the real issue with the London Underground - the maintenance needs which are onerous and prevent the trains from running overnight on most nights.

tinus_hn 5y ago

That kind of kit has reliability properties that are hard to imagine. There is a number of things that can go wrong and that gear basically guarantees that if you pass a green sign the track is free. 100% bug free and the only glitches there are is that if a bulb burns out, the system doesn’t run until it is replaced. You can rebuild that kind of system but it’ll be exactly the same hardware behind a more modern looking panel.