1992 stock Refurbishment?

[Chiltern 165]

The biggest passenger issue they fixed during that work was replacing the many collapsed seat cushions - sadly at the moment that's back to being really common on ones I've ridden lately.

Almost every priority seat has collapsed cushions (atleast previously).

By the time the 92 stock is complete, they may as well skip the 96 stock refurb as they will be end of life!

Because TfL LOVES retiring trains when they should

 

[Russel]

Because TfL LOVES retiring trains when they should

Yeah fair point!

 

[mrmartin]

Its amazing - but not unique to LUL - that what used to be regarded as ‘routine’ - ranging from overhaul and repaint to a seat retrim is now regarded as a ‘project’ rather than a routine exercise. Interesting that on buses, where the operation is of course contracted, TfL require a ‘refurb’ (panels, repaint, retrim etc) of buses typically at 7 years and can do so because there is no ‘direct’ cost to them (though clearly it gets built into contract prices). Hence the buses - generally - are cleaner and smarter than tubes. But on LUL everything is seemingly reliant on a ‘bid’ for money to carry out what in many cases should be routine works (I’m not including accessibility mods in this).

Agreed. Also TfL requires even minicabs can't be 10 years old!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Today at 01:22 ==

CLIP budget is currently £500 million. Piccadilly line stock was £1.5 billion in 2018 money, assuming same number of trains on the central line it would be £1.4 billion, or £1.9 billion in today’s money according to the inflation rate. The reality is the cost could be higher depending on the terms of the options TfL has.

This doesn’t include the cost of altering infrastructure for the trains, such as change in swept path. For the Piccadilly line this has made the total cost of the programme £3.4 billion.

Doesn't seem like a good deal to me? £500m for maybe 15 years (if you are lucky) vs £2bn for a new fleet which should last triple that, plus you don't have the very high risk of huge cancellations in the project going wrong that we've seen. (Though in fairness given the huge amount of issues all recent tfl fleets have had, maybe not quite as clear cut as it should be). And you do have to spend the money eventually anyway!

And surely it's possible to order trains that don't require loads of infrastructure changes with enough collaboration?

 

[RUK]

CLIP budget is currently £500 million. Piccadilly line stock was £1.5 billion in 2018 money, assuming same number of trains on the central line it would be £1.4 billion, or £1.9 billion in today’s money according to the inflation rate. The reality is the cost could be higher depending on the terms of the options TfL has.

This doesn’t include the cost of altering infrastructure for the trains, such as change in swept path. For the Piccadilly line this has made the total cost of the programme £3.4 billion.

Bear in mind that the Central line trains will be longer, probably 11-car to make them at least the length of the 1992 Stock, as opposed to the 9-car 2024 Stock on the Piccadilly line, which will presumably make the Central line trains more expensive on a per-train basis - I don’t know whether or not you accounted for that in your calculation.

 

[sh24]

Any costs will have increased by much more than inflation - inputs like steel, aluminium, copper, electronics are typically 50 to 200% more expensive than 2020.

 

[Benjwri]

Bear in mind that the Central line trains will be longer, probably 11-car to make them at least the length of the 1992 Stock, as opposed to the 9-car 2024 Stock on the Piccadilly line, which will presumably make the Central line trains more expensive on a per-train basis - I don’t know whether or not you accounted for that in your calculation.

No I did not account for this, good point.

 

[Recessio]

Agreed. Also TfL requires even minicabs can't be 10 years old!

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Today at 01:22 ==


Doesn't seem like a good deal to me? £500m for maybe 15 years (if you are lucky) vs £2bn for a new fleet which should last triple that, plus you don't have the very high risk of huge cancellations in the project going wrong that we've seen. (Though in fairness given the huge amount of issues all recent tfl fleets have had, maybe not quite as clear cut as it should be). And you do have to spend the money eventually anyway!

And surely it's possible to order trains that don't require loads of infrastructure changes with enough collaboration?

But also that's £0.5bn now versus £2.0bn now - in the short-term world of politics and funding cycles, that's a future TfL's problem 15 years down the line

 

[Benjwri]

But also that's £0.5bn now versus £2.0bn now - in the short-term world of politics and funding cycles, that's a future TfL's problem 15 years down the line

I would argue TfL isn’t that bad about planning ahead these days, and it’s more £0.5bn ‘now’ is a lot easier to raise with local government financing rules, and is actually spread over a far longer period than the cost of a new fleet.