Engeering An End in Sight? Latest Victoria Line Service Update

Neil Gerrard recently met with London Underground which has taken over the upgrading of the Victoria Line. He wanted me to share with readers of this site the outcomes of his meeting and the details of the ongoing engineering works. LU stated that, originally, the whole project was scheduled to be completed by 2013, but they are now aiming for a late 2011 finish. The upgrade will include 47 new trains, new signalling, renewed track, and a new control centre. This will result in an increase in capacity, and improved journey times.

The current early closures have allowed the work to be speeded up and LU are aiming to have the bulk of the engineering finished by the middle of next year. Closures should become fewer over time, and probably the current period of early evening closures will not be repeated. There are still some uncertainties, arising from the fact that LU have taken over this project from Metronet, and so still have to satisfy themselves that everything is going to keep to schedule. The key point however seems to be that although the whole project still has 3 years or more to run, the latter part of that is the bringing in of the new trains rather than continued major engineering works. I hope this is of interest and I'll keep updating this site if I get any further information on these works.