UK: Officials across government departments recognise that Transport for London needs a long-term comprehensive funding agreement, but ‘the challenge is the duration and quantum involved’, London’s Transport Commissioner Andy Lord said at the opening of Siemens Mobility’s Goole factory on October 3.
The Goole site will assemble 80% of the 94 trainsets ordered for London Underground’s Piccadilly Line.
TfL’s Deep Tube Upgrade Programme also envisages the replacement of all the existing trains on the Central, Waterloo & City and Bakerloo lines with similar vehicles to the Piccadilly Line fleet, bringing the total requirement for new trains to around 250 sets.
Funding is not currently in place, and TfL has made it clear that a decision regarding the Bakerloo Line is critical; even if agreed immediately the new trains would not be delivered until around 2028, when the current fleet will be approaching 56 years old and will be the oldest passenger train fleet in the UK by a significant margin.
