Signalling and EU Procurement Rules

Surely the real problem is the funding for the Bakerloo Line Upgrade being pulled? Had that remained in place, it too would be running modern trains with TBTC by the end of the decade and this would only be a short term problem.

Also, the ability to occasionally move a 1970 stock by rail would be a silly reason not to provide the massive capacity upgrade to the Jubillee line that TBTC has provided.

The previous 3 comments, (Ben's Malcolm's & tomek's) are VERY profound. Money seems to have been poured into making things (a) overcomplicated, and (b) incompatible with other part of the system. LU's obsession with 'handed stock' has also obstructed clear thinking.

We now have District Line trains that can't access all of the District Line. Where will it end??

Confused by your last point - unless you mean the D stock!?

Is the D Stock officially banned beyond High Street Kensington because we used to send them non-stop from Fulham Broadway to King's Cross at some football match occasions. Don't think it has been done for many a year though.

I think we're wandering off topic, but we used to do the same with 8-car A Stock from New Cross Gate back to the Met on selected Saturday afternoons. (Sorry folks, end of 'drift').

Well, I doubt that there are many district drivers who are route-trained on the northern part of the circle, but I suppose that the train would be (and was) ran with a pilot from the circle. Although, nowadays it is even more possible to run such a service with an S7, District driver as far as Edgware Road, and then change T/Op to a circle driver

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I must disagree there. It, like many other problems supposedly theirs, is not anything to do with Europe. The problem is squarely a British one of mismanagement and misapplication. Something we have always excelled at!

Instead of tendering for a complete product, you tender for a a set of technical standards, equipment protocols, interoperability paradigms, etc etc.

You then, when needed, put out a tender for, or construct in house if required in sufficiently low numbers, equipment that opperates to these standards. This is what the NY subway has done - a system where compatability is crucial.


If you wish to change a lightbulb, you shouldnt have to rewire your house.


To go further with the previous point, Britains railways are crowded and will become even more so. We're at a point now where NR is commissioning ATO for trunk lines to enable ever increasing throughput. Where new ideas of lightrail systems are starting to bud without being instantly stomped on by Whitehall's kervorkian boot, and which are not likely to use tripcocks and relays and treadles and semaphores. There is a need for this kind of system but designed to a standard that isnt propriatry to one manufacturer with the inherant limits in support and servicability duration. And if such a system is designed it can be sold on or shared with other users in the UK who also require such a project, saving all public transportation in the UK a fortune in costs over the long term.

Ask any District line passengers trapped in a sweltering D stock yesterday if they'll be sad to see it replaced with an air-conditioned S Stock.

No, it really is EU procurement law. This forces. LU to put the signalling for each line out to contract in a separate competitive tender.

www.out-law.com/page-5964

Note, I'm not anti-EU at all - just explaining how the law of the land has forced LU's hand here. I'm sure they would have preferred to have approached Thales directly if allowed.

How would this prevent LU specifying that signalling systems from different suppliers should be compatible?

Fair enough about the old Central Line system (well their tunnels have a physical restriction with the positive conductor rail higher than normal) however I can't see a reason why the Victoria, Jubilee and Northern Line systems couldn't have been the same. Or is it because Victoria came under Metronet but Jubilee came under Tubelines and each selected their own system?

It would presumably make the cost prohibitive

Delete - replied to the wrong post. Sorry.

Good point, I completely forgot about that, which is really important.

The other thing I didn't really think about is how quickly technology advances, which I should have thought of, because it was really the point that was made to begin with - the old stuff, relays and what have you, pretty much stick around, but new technology is very quickly eclipsed a few years later by the next round of new technology. So, think about it, the Vic was the first line to go ATO, but its system wasn't very impressive, so when they did the Central, they tried something shiny and new. The shiny and new didn't stay shiny and new for very long, though, and when they wanted to upgrade the Vic they had DTG-R which was just much better. The reason why we didn't get DTG-R on all three of the Vic, Jubilee and Northern (or TBTC on all three) was, you're right, the absolute fiasco and general horrendous failure of PPP and Metronet and Tubelines. Stupidity by the bucketload. But what's of real relevance to us now is that when the next round of upgrades rolls through, e.g. what will we have on the Central to replace its ATO, DTG-R and TBTC might both look nearly as oldy woldy and generally backward as "legacy signalling" such that it could be improved on so much that it would be stupid to install the old technology and so the cycle would go on. Unless you upgrade all lines at the same time to the same signalling, the march of technology means that in the ten years between upgrading one line and upgrading another the system installed on the first line will have become itself nearly obsolete. Obviously that doesn't always apply across the board, for instance it looks like the SSR might get TBTC too, but it's easy to imagine than when it comes to the Picc or the Bakerloo in a few years TBTC will have been massively improved on. (If you ask me, it's already improved on by the Bakerloo line's current signalling, but that's just me... )