7 ms·

The issue is that a major point of this upgrade was defeated as the article slightly mentions, but doesn't dwell on it: the signalling upgrade that the line sor

The issue is that a major point of this upgrade was defeated as the article slightly mentions, but doesn't dwell on it: the signalling upgrade that the line sorely needs was axed during the Covid TfL budget crisis negotiations and is not coming back. The whole point of the "New Tube for London" project was that new modern trains were tied to signalling upgrades, which would let more trains run on the existing lines in a more reliable way. The trains were already ordered so will be delivered, with the associated flashy benefits of new carriages, but now the line capacity won't increase, so you'll still get the same breakdowns and delays that currently happen now. The Piccadilly line also won't be able to stop at the stations it currently skips (since they don't want to delay service any further than now) – making the Piccadilly Line stop at some of the stations it currently skips was also tied to the signalling upgrades. It's classic top-down "you need to cut on costs" decision making leading to having to make compromises on a project in a way that it'll still cost a bunch of money, but without a major benefit at the expense of a (comparatively) small cost saving. You see this in software engineering all the time too.

martinald 3y ago
This isn't completely correct. There is going to be an increase of capacity even without resignalling from 24tph to 27tph. It's also not a low cost thing, the SSLs resignalling cost at least £1.6bn and has been horrendously delayed. While the pic line is less complex than the SSLs, there has been ridiculous cost inflation on all rail projects, so I would not be surprised if it costs a similar amount of money. In comparison the new trains cost £1.5bn so it's basically the same again to resignal the line to ATO. I also believe the new trains can accelerate faster so new stops are potentially possible. And in theory at least they should be a lot more reliable, even if the signals aren't. FWIW there was a signals redesign contract for the pic singed in 2022 so I don't think it's never going to happen. Also even before covid it was phased that the new trains and signalling where fairly independent projects.
- blackhaz 3y ago
  I was amazed how well underground trains accelerate in Amsterdam and Munich. Also, how pleasant they are, and the interior design pleasantly fresh, with good amount of space and good-sized windows. That tube stock we have from the 70s looks really, really dated in 2020s. And the new ones look exactly the same, just even smaller windows? I can't imagine why they went ahead with that purchase.
  - Symbiote 3y ago
    How can they make the trains bigger when they're already as big as can fit in the tunnels? (You can read the article to see the reason for the windows.)
    - blackhaz 3y ago
      It's a design issue, not a tunnel size issue. Look at all these interior details, not to mention a completely identical exterior. It's the rolling stock from the freaking past. Obviously there were so many cost-cutting measures (or somebody just pocketed all the money) that they took the original design, which was pretty cool half a decade ago, and just slapped an air conditioner on top of it. That's it, dude. That's everything we've got. What should have been done is a complete redesign of the car, and then they'd be able to figure out how to put all the A/C ducts without having to do all this windows crap. Hell, it's 2023. The age of rockets landing backwards. We should be having panoramic windows in these carts by now.
      - seabass-labrax 3y ago
        What do you expect to see out of these panoramic windows? The Piccadilly line is hardly the most scenic route in the UK; there's nothing to see but tunnel walls for more than half of the full line. I'm not arguing against panoramic windows if they're easily installed, but that seems to me like it should be a substantially lower priority than air conditioning on the deeper Underground lines.
      - Symbiote 3y ago
        Can you link to the Munich or Amsterdam metro trains? I just see fairly ordinary metro trains for a system with normal-size tunnels. The design is irrelevant to the small tunnels of the Piccadilly Line. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MVG_Class_C https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MVG_Class_C https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:M7_(Metro_Amsterdam) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:M7_(Metro_Amster... A better comparison is with the Circle/District/etc lines. Those trains are of similar size to the Dutch and German ones, although I think they are designed to carry a lot more people so there are fewer seats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_S7_and_S8_Stock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_S7_and_S8_S...
- disruptiveink 3y ago
  Correct – that's the stated 10% capacity increase of the new trains. It's not nothing. My disappointment comes from the fact that there are stations where the Piccadilly just blazes through and doesn't stop. The platforms are there, maintained and in use, but the train just goes past. Those areas have been repeatedly told for the past decade "no new stops until signalling upgrades which you'll get when the new trains come – otherwise it would make the journeys longer and we can't have that on a line that services Heathrow!". Now the time has come and the signalling upgrades were axed, meaning according to the original logic, no chance of getting the trains to stop at your station. Of course new stations could be serviced, at a cost of making the journeys slower – surely the argument of "if the train stops at your station, it'll slow down the journey for everyone" applies to all stations, not just a select few? But even if we go with the nonsensical "we can't slow down the average journey time", other options could be taken, such as making the trains stop at the least used stations alternately – you don't even need to go full "Express Train" route NYC does if your issue is just a couple of stations. Still, TfL hasn't really shown any interest in touching any that and always said "you'll get your stop with the new trains". Well, the new trains are almost here and it doesn't look like it'll come with a solution, just more of the status quo. Air conditioning is of course great and I'm not advocating for maintaining old stock forever. But a shiny new train does nothing if the train won't stop at your station. And you're not going to get much gains if your shiny new trains are effectively throttled to last century speeds with last century reliability.
  - martinald 3y ago
    The capacity increase is 10% in terms of trains per hour and another ~10% in terms of how many people you can fit in the train, so it's nearly 25% pax carrying increase. Given tube numbers are down 20%, since covid, this is a huge improvement in space per passenger. I think you are really overegging the impact of the skipped station (turnham green?) You can just get a district line train and change. Ok, it's not ideal but it's probably only adding 5-10mins to journey times. It's one station on a network of hundreds and does not justify billion+ spent for it. And I don't think there is a business case for further capacity, as not only would it require resignalling it requires another batch of trains to be built to get it up to 36tph. There isn't the demand for that post covid. This may change but there are much more pressing captial projects for tfl (bakerloo line extension for example) imo.
- ExoticPearTree 3y ago
  > It's also not a low cost thing, the SSLs resignalling cost at least £1.6bn and has been horrendously delayed. Pardon my ignorance, but how can a signaling system cost that much money? Is it made out of gold and platinum or what?
  - l33t7332273 3y ago
    I’m routinely surprised by how much things like this cost. I think the answer is that solving this problem takes a teak of some size and skill, and paying them while making a hefty profit is expensive.
    - konschubert 3y ago
      It’s compliance and bureaucracy that keeps competition out.
      - arcticbull 3y ago
        I think it has more to do with lack of state capacity. The agencies responsible for building this don't have anyone in-house anymore who can actually plan and carry out the job, instead relying on cascading layers of consultants and sub-consultants who manage contractors and sub-contractors.
  - NamTaf 3y ago
    That's the price of making complex, real-world hardware systems fail-safe. By fail-safe, I don't mean 'never fail' but, more literally, fail in a way that remains safe for all other systems interfacing with the failing one. Proving that it fails safely requires a mountain of effort and documentation, but it's required because failure doesn't just lead to some speculative CPU bugs leaking a password or to a browser crash, it leads to many people dying.
    - rglullis 3y ago
      To add to your point, the accident in Greece this summer that killed 50+ kids was attributed to human error that could've been avoided if they had upgraded their signalling system like it was promised decades ago.
- dallyo 3y ago
  > I also believe the new trains can accelerate faster so new stops are potentially possible. Is accelerating faster a practical solution though, considering how many people are standing?
- nickt 3y ago
  I had to look it up: SSL = sub-surface line
- ploxiln 3y ago
  In NYC, faster-accelerating subway trains, with not-better brakes, actually caused slower subway service. The coarse-grained signaling had to assume the worst case: a subway train that started max acceleration (operator fainted on gas pedal?) just after a signal, and wouldn't have emergency brakes automatically tripped until the next signal. So faster accelerating cars can get faster in that segment, and require keeping more signal-blocks of spacing between trains for max emergency braking distance. (So, really the fault of old signals and brakes, but still, faster trains had slower service :) https://homesignalblog.wordpress.com/2022/12/21/how-we-slowed-the-subway-down/ https://homesignalblog.wordpress.com/2022/12/21/how-we-slowe...
- mnd999 3y ago
  It’s bonkers. It stopes at South Ealing which is about 10 yards from Northfields but not at Turnham Green which is super busy.
DoreenMichele 3y ago
Glad to see this top comment. I saw the headline and thought it would be more handwringing about climate change, a la "Look! Even northern Europe needs AC these days."

martinald 3y ago

This isn't completely correct. There is going to be an increase of capacity even without resignalling from 24tph to 27tph. It's also not a low cost thing, the SSLs resignalling cost at least £1.6bn and has been horrendously delayed. While the pic line is less complex than the SSLs, there has been ridiculous cost inflation on all rail projects, so I would not be surprised if it costs a similar amount of money. In comparison the new trains cost £1.5bn so it's basically the same again to resignal the line to ATO. I also believe the new trains can accelerate faster so new stops are potentially possible. And in theory at least they should be a lot more reliable, even if the signals aren't. FWIW there was a signals redesign contract for the pic singed in 2022 so I don't think it's never going to happen. Also even before covid it was phased that the new trains and signalling where fairly independent projects.

blackhaz 3y ago
I was amazed how well underground trains accelerate in Amsterdam and Munich. Also, how pleasant they are, and the interior design pleasantly fresh, with good amount of space and good-sized windows. That tube stock we have from the 70s looks really, really dated in 2020s. And the new ones look exactly the same, just even smaller windows? I can't imagine why they went ahead with that purchase.
- Symbiote 3y ago
  How can they make the trains bigger when they're already as big as can fit in the tunnels? (You can read the article to see the reason for the windows.)
  - blackhaz 3y ago
    It's a design issue, not a tunnel size issue. Look at all these interior details, not to mention a completely identical exterior. It's the rolling stock from the freaking past. Obviously there were so many cost-cutting measures (or somebody just pocketed all the money) that they took the original design, which was pretty cool half a decade ago, and just slapped an air conditioner on top of it. That's it, dude. That's everything we've got. What should have been done is a complete redesign of the car, and then they'd be able to figure out how to put all the A/C ducts without having to do all this windows crap. Hell, it's 2023. The age of rockets landing backwards. We should be having panoramic windows in these carts by now.
    - seabass-labrax 3y ago
      What do you expect to see out of these panoramic windows? The Piccadilly line is hardly the most scenic route in the UK; there's nothing to see but tunnel walls for more than half of the full line. I'm not arguing against panoramic windows if they're easily installed, but that seems to me like it should be a substantially lower priority than air conditioning on the deeper Underground lines.
    - Symbiote 3y ago
      Can you link to the Munich or Amsterdam metro trains? I just see fairly ordinary metro trains for a system with normal-size tunnels. The design is irrelevant to the small tunnels of the Piccadilly Line. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MVG_Class_C https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MVG_Class_C https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:M7_(Metro_Amsterdam) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:M7_(Metro_Amster... A better comparison is with the Circle/District/etc lines. Those trains are of similar size to the Dutch and German ones, although I think they are designed to carry a lot more people so there are fewer seats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_S7_and_S8_Stock https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground_S7_and_S8_S...
disruptiveink 3y ago
Correct – that's the stated 10% capacity increase of the new trains. It's not nothing. My disappointment comes from the fact that there are stations where the Piccadilly just blazes through and doesn't stop. The platforms are there, maintained and in use, but the train just goes past. Those areas have been repeatedly told for the past decade "no new stops until signalling upgrades which you'll get when the new trains come – otherwise it would make the journeys longer and we can't have that on a line that services Heathrow!". Now the time has come and the signalling upgrades were axed, meaning according to the original logic, no chance of getting the trains to stop at your station. Of course new stations could be serviced, at a cost of making the journeys slower – surely the argument of "if the train stops at your station, it'll slow down the journey for everyone" applies to all stations, not just a select few? But even if we go with the nonsensical "we can't slow down the average journey time", other options could be taken, such as making the trains stop at the least used stations alternately – you don't even need to go full "Express Train" route NYC does if your issue is just a couple of stations. Still, TfL hasn't really shown any interest in touching any that and always said "you'll get your stop with the new trains". Well, the new trains are almost here and it doesn't look like it'll come with a solution, just more of the status quo. Air conditioning is of course great and I'm not advocating for maintaining old stock forever. But a shiny new train does nothing if the train won't stop at your station. And you're not going to get much gains if your shiny new trains are effectively throttled to last century speeds with last century reliability.
- martinald 3y ago
  The capacity increase is 10% in terms of trains per hour and another ~10% in terms of how many people you can fit in the train, so it's nearly 25% pax carrying increase. Given tube numbers are down 20%, since covid, this is a huge improvement in space per passenger. I think you are really overegging the impact of the skipped station (turnham green?) You can just get a district line train and change. Ok, it's not ideal but it's probably only adding 5-10mins to journey times. It's one station on a network of hundreds and does not justify billion+ spent for it. And I don't think there is a business case for further capacity, as not only would it require resignalling it requires another batch of trains to be built to get it up to 36tph. There isn't the demand for that post covid. This may change but there are much more pressing captial projects for tfl (bakerloo line extension for example) imo.
ExoticPearTree 3y ago
> It's also not a low cost thing, the SSLs resignalling cost at least £1.6bn and has been horrendously delayed. Pardon my ignorance, but how can a signaling system cost that much money? Is it made out of gold and platinum or what?
- l33t7332273 3y ago
  I’m routinely surprised by how much things like this cost. I think the answer is that solving this problem takes a teak of some size and skill, and paying them while making a hefty profit is expensive.
  - konschubert 3y ago
    It’s compliance and bureaucracy that keeps competition out.
    - arcticbull 3y ago
      I think it has more to do with lack of state capacity. The agencies responsible for building this don't have anyone in-house anymore who can actually plan and carry out the job, instead relying on cascading layers of consultants and sub-consultants who manage contractors and sub-contractors.
- NamTaf 3y ago
  That's the price of making complex, real-world hardware systems fail-safe. By fail-safe, I don't mean 'never fail' but, more literally, fail in a way that remains safe for all other systems interfacing with the failing one. Proving that it fails safely requires a mountain of effort and documentation, but it's required because failure doesn't just lead to some speculative CPU bugs leaking a password or to a browser crash, it leads to many people dying.
  - rglullis 3y ago
    To add to your point, the accident in Greece this summer that killed 50+ kids was attributed to human error that could've been avoided if they had upgraded their signalling system like it was promised decades ago.
dallyo 3y ago
> I also believe the new trains can accelerate faster so new stops are potentially possible. Is accelerating faster a practical solution though, considering how many people are standing?
nickt 3y ago
I had to look it up: SSL = sub-surface line
ploxiln 3y ago
In NYC, faster-accelerating subway trains, with not-better brakes, actually caused slower subway service. The coarse-grained signaling had to assume the worst case: a subway train that started max acceleration (operator fainted on gas pedal?) just after a signal, and wouldn't have emergency brakes automatically tripped until the next signal. So faster accelerating cars can get faster in that segment, and require keeping more signal-blocks of spacing between trains for max emergency braking distance. (So, really the fault of old signals and brakes, but still, faster trains had slower service :) https://homesignalblog.wordpress.com/2022/12/21/how-we-slowed-the-subway-down/ https://homesignalblog.wordpress.com/2022/12/21/how-we-slowe...
mnd999 3y ago
It’s bonkers. It stopes at South Ealing which is about 10 yards from Northfields but not at Turnham Green which is super busy.

DoreenMichele 3y ago

Glad to see this top comment. I saw the headline and thought it would be more handwringing about climate change, a la "Look! Even northern Europe needs AC these days."