The Chancellor’s Spring Budget 2024 came and went without funding replacement stock for London Underground’s Bakerloo line, leaving Mayor Sadiq Khan to express his disappointment that there was nothing being done to improve the capital’s public transport system.
The DfT has set December 2029 as the date when the Bakerloo will technically have to shut down because the current 1972 Stock fleet will no longer be fit for use.
TfL is continuing with its application for an exemption from disability access rules for the carriages that serve the line’s 25 stations until the end of the decade. This considers that the option for replacing the fleet with Siemens Mobility units similar to the new Piccadilly line fleet expires in November 2026. If no decision is forthcoming, an extension will have to be sought, but the DfT has conceded the entire future of the route could be in trouble by then.
It says: “If the option cannot be exercised within that timeframe, a separate procurement for new Bakerloo line trains will be required in the future, setting back replacement of the fleet until the mid-to-late 2030s. This would jeopardise the future operation of the Bakerloo line given the age and condition of the current fleet.”
There are currently some specific mobility access issues at all the Network Rail-owned stations on the Bakerlo
