please empty your brain below

The night tube will put extra wear on the track and there will be no opportunity (apart from those two days at Christmas) to do maintenance.

So while 2015 will be 'The Year When The Night Tube Started', will 2016 be 'The Year When The Night Tube Had Some Unexpected Short-notice Closures'?
How much maintenance can be done without a weekend closure? I wouldn't be at all surprised if there were unexpected closures before Christmas, and not just at weekends.
I am sorry but I think this is a very rare occasion when you have written a complete load of rubbish.

Over the last few years LU have gone to a lot of trouble to find ways of doing deep tube replacement work without weekend possessions. If you had followed the six months lookahead for the relevant lines in the past year you would have noticed that closure on these lines was rare. A major exception was the Jubilee Line for tunnel lining replacement works (a once off) which is now complete.

The sole reason why the Bakerloo is not included in Night Tube is that LU know that is it so old and clapped out that in this case they do need the weekend to keep patching and mending it. It is also the case the the other sub-surface lines will need a lot of work done in the next few years so that is excluded from Night Tube currently. Lines only become eligible for Night Tube once TfL have got them in a state when then can maintain them without weekend closures.

Hong Kong can manage without weekend closures and do all the normal maintenance work in night time posessions. Why should we be any different?

I think you have looked at the lack of weekend closures on the Night Tube and jumped to entirely the wrong conclusion.
There are several track closures on Night Tube lines between now and mid-September, and then none for the rest of the year.

This might well be the result of good engineering management rather than public relations driven, but it is not a coincidence.
I think both DG and PoP are right, TfL have been trying to cut down on the amount of weekend closures ever since all the bad publicity of the Jubilee line resignalling PPP closing it almost every weekend. So I've no doubt as PoP says TfL are trying to avoid weekend closures, particularly on the Jubilee, Victoria and Northern lines where a lot of work has taken place in the last few years.

But the fact there are no weekend closures for 3 months looks very deliberate, so I think DG is correct that TfL are trying very hard to make Night Tube look good.
Sorry DG, but I still don't accept your argument. If we look at the closure in the next three months on affected lines.

Central: 1
This is probably the final remnant of a long programme to upgrade the track in the central area. Or alternatively something to do with the Central Line at Tottenham Court Road (work will be complete there by December).

Jubilee: 3
There is exceptionally one weekend between North Greenwich and Stratford. There are two closures as a result of adjacent work on the Metropolitan Line and so the line has to be closed for safety reasons - but that might change.

Northern: 0

Piccadilly: 4
All are Acton Town to Uxbridge which is not part of the Night Tube.

Victoria: 4
These are part of a 23 day continuous blockade of the north end of the line for a major capacity upgrade to enable 36tph to be reverse at Walthamstow Central. The timing of the works was chosen only because August has the quietest 3-week period of the year and the decision was not influenced by the Night Tube - although the start date of the Night Tube may have been influenced by these works.

I also think you are being disingenuous in referring to the period of September to December. You don't make it clear that there are no planned weekend tube works at all affecting passengers in December. This is a long-standing policy.

Come 2016 you may be able to prove me wrong and I will have to eat humble pie but I think you will find weekend tube closures on Night Tube routes will be few and far between and will remain that way.
I don't usually play the player, but blimey what unrelenting negativity. TfL do something good, something that the public have wanted for years and now it is "PR spin" and "massaged".

Not sure what happened yesterday to deliver this negative post, but poor form, DG.
"Night Tube" was a smokescreen for ticket office closures (in complete contravention of the Mayor's electoral promises) and loss of 1,000 jobs in London.
Not sure why the Piccadilly was only split into two halves for after the night tube has opened. The closures in June and August are also Acton Town to Uxbridge.
@kim - well said, you hit the nail on the head
I agree about the negativity of this posting, as well as the excuses about engineering works etc. etc., yawn.....

I live in a city that has had 24h underground services on all lines (except one short branch) at weekends and on holidays for over twelve years now. It has made a positive impact on city life and a call to withdraw the service would certainly generate outrage in the press and with the public. The longest period of continual service that we have, is from the Thursday evening before Good Friday until close of service on Easter Monday (Over four days continually). That, as well as 24h services at New Year & of course Christmas are a boon. Is London a world class city or not??

As for the pittance, these underground drivers make. I presume that was meant tongue in cheek?

Dumb question: Does it really matter if they work through the night anyway? They drive in the dark regardless..
@PoP
"Over the last few years LU have gone to a lot of trouble to find ways of doing deep tube replacement work without weekend possessions. .......The sole reason why the Bakerloo is not included in Night Tube is ....... they do need the weekend to keep patching and mending it."

Actually, you are doing the Bakerloo an injustice. LU's part of the Bakerloo line has no scheduled work on it either. All the scheduled closures are on National Rail's bit, north of Queens Park.
Isn't it the complexity of interworking with NR at Queens Park (even if they terminate there) which prevents the Bakerloo being included in Night Tube?
@PoP
"the start date of the Night Tube may have been influenced by these works"
I think you've hit the nail on the head - why else choose that particular date to start?


It not "just" the "operating logistics" that has to be thought about...it the security & welfare of those travelling on the tube at those hours. Many will be "perhaps" drunk (/affected by drugs?) and no doubt there will be "incidents". One only has to look at the "drama" on many of the night-buses in London to realise there going to be "issues".
I think DG has a point, but I also point out that many rail lines have also now moved to a system where they attempt to do maintenance overnight, and NR work really hard to do this.

Except for really big stuff like signalling, there is no need to shut down a line for days, and NR are even now replacing rails overnight!

I think it is more a consequence that Sept was after the summer big work had been done than the work was done before Night Tube.
(Also, New Year to Easter tends to be quiet socially, so they are more likely to do work in these months and the summer every year)
There are certainly a lot fewer weekend closures on the Underground than there used to be. As evidence, here's a list of shutdowns from 2009 http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2009/04/transforming-weekend.html
I'm sorry, I agree with Pedantic here. You're presuming that weekend closures are inevitable, and seem to be mixing up engineering works for to enable to system to tick over, with engineering works for the purposes of upgrading and strengthening the system, much of which was chronically overdue. Remember that rolling weekend closures only started about 10 years ago.

The contra-premise is that after all the weekend closures, enough of the latter has been done to enable to former to be condensed to 5 nights per week instead of 7.
Another example of carefully-timed track work.

A three month closure of Wimbledon Tramlink stop has suddenly appeared on the TfL closures site: I'm pretty sure it wasn't there last week. Yet it starts in just two weeks' time.

(Carefully timed to miss the Tennis!)










TridentScan | Privacy Policy