London Underground’s Bakerloo Line has been described as being “at risk of failure”, in a damning report that urges the Government and Transport for London to stop putting off a decision on investment in new rolling stock and route works.
The Bakerloo’s 1972 Stock is the oldest in use anywhere in the UK and is already 15 years past its life expectancy, says a document produced for the boroughs of Lewisham and Southwark.
TfL says it expects to know by the end of March whether the upgrade of the current Bakerloo Line will gain government approval. It also wonders whether there is now any appetite for the south extension that could reach out to Hayes, because the estimated cost has risen threefold to possibly £8 billion.
The councils warn that the window for good-value replacement trains will close soon if Siemens is unable to handle a run-on order from the new Piccadilly Line units at its new factory at Goole in East Yorkshire.
The report also expresses dismay that the Bakerloo is carrying only half the passengers it is capable of, because it is so rundown. Service cancellations meant 630,500 lost customer hours in 2022-23, 370% worse than 2012.
It complains about ‘managed decline’ that has forced a reduction in services from 24 per hour to 20, and that it costs £55,000 a year to maintain a Bakerloo Line vehicle compared with £26,000 for the Metropolitan Line. Half the Bakerloo fleet needs an overhaul every year to keep it running, and the total bill by the mid-2030s will be around £500 million.
The report says that new step-free air-conditioned trains and resignalling will improve the service to 27 trains per hour, and greatly improve the lives of 920,000 working people within a 12-minute walk fro
