LONDON | DLR, Underground, Tramlink

[londonindyboy]

[londonindyboy]

[hkskyline]

A review paints drab picture of the Tube
Heather Timmons
29 July 2005
International Herald Tribune

Is the world's oldest subway system, the London Underground, facing a crisis? The threats of terrorism are not the only problem. Multibillion-dollar renewal projects on the 142-year-old system are behind schedule and over budget, including an overhaul of the radio transmission network, a government official said. And one union said safety concerns were not being resolved, despite equipment malfunctions during the attacks this month. The union threatened to strike. The Underground, also known as the Tube, is the major artery for London, which is not only Britain's capital and largest city but also Europe's financial center. On average, it moves three million passengers a day. The system suffered from decades of underinvestment when it was owned by the government. But a plan in the late 1990s was supposed to put an end to the lack of money.

The British government farmed out control of infrastructure for the system to companies like Balfour Beatty and Bombardier, and to Motorola, which pledged to spend l16 billion, or about $28 billion, over 30 years to repair it. A group called London Underground, part of the government-controlled group Transport For London, is responsible for the drivers and most other employees. The first official full review of the process, released Wednesday, painted a bleak picture of privatization.

Corporate shareholders are earning "significant sums of money," while the conglomerates responsible for maintaining the lines and trains are not delivering the improvements they have promised, according to a report written by the managing director of London Underground, Tim O'Toole. Just two years after the maintenance privatization contracts were granted, "many of the renewal projects" were already behind schedule, O'Toole said. "We are paying a premium price for improvements, but performance to date has not been good enough." The review came at a dark time for the Underground. Passenger numbers have dropped since the attacks July 7, officials said without giving specifics. The police have warned of more attacks, and many former passengers now ride bicycles to work or take a boat on the Thames.

The unions' officials emerged upset from a meeting with officials from the London Underground. Since the attacks July 7, they have been asking for, among other things, trains with radios that work and breathing apparatus. "We were concerned to hear suggestions that funding for improved security would have to depend solely on passenger revenue, especially as we were told that revenue was heading south following the recent bombing attacks," said Bob Crow, general secretary of RMT, formerly the Rail, Maritime and Transport Union. The union's leaders plan to meet Friday to discuss a strike. Drivers of Underground trains, who are not allowed to talk to the news media directly, have shared tales of chaos and confusion with their union representative. One was held at gunpoint at the Stockwell station, where a Brazilian electrician was killed Friday by police officers who did not recognize his uniform. The old-style blue-checked uniforms, which look like some worn by employees at some British grocery stores and pubs, are being phased out. Another driver at the station did not get instructions to evacuate his passengers immediately, and his radio and mayday signal did not work, said Steve Grant of the transport union Aslef. The driver wound up driving his train a stop farther south, after evacuating the carriages himself, because all the ground staff members were already out of the station, Grant said. When he arrived at the next station in his empty train and exited it, he was stopped by a police officer, who said he should not be there because the place was being searched for chemicals, Grant said.

Some of these problems may be linked to the complicated privatization system, critics say. The Underground lines and infrastructure are maintained by two conglomerates: Tube Lines, which is owned by Amey and Bechtel, and Metronet, owned by Atkins, Balfour Beatty, Bombardier, EDF Energy and RWE Thames Water. Engineering overruns for projects managed by these groups have increased 35 percent from the year before, the London Underground said. Motorola and the communication companies Racal Translink and Fluor Daniel were given a l1.2 billion contract in 1999 to replace and manage the communications system, which is months behind, London Underground officials said. "We're going to have to put more money into it," said a spokesman for the London Underground, Stephen Webb.

[hkskyline]

London seeks new transport boss after Kiley quits

LONDON, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Britain's capital began looking for a new transport supremo on Friday after Bob Kiley, the ex CIA man who oversaw the introduction of congestion charging and extra buses, quit unexpectedly.

The Transport for London (TfL) Commissioner gave no reasons as to why he was leaving the high profile job although several newspapers said his early departure was because of a row.

"It has been a privilege to serve...TfL has more than proved it can deliver since it was formed five years ago," Kiley said in a short statement.

The Times newspaper said Kiley, who was expected to stay on until 2008, had quit after clashing with a fellow director and failing to get support from Mayor Ken Livingstone.

The resignation of 70-year old Kiley was because he had argued with Livingstone, the Independent said, while the Guardian reported the American had lost a power struggle with the mayor.

Kiley, a former New York subway boss credited with revamping that crime-ridden network, was brought in by Livingstone to sort out London's extensive, but ageing transport infrastructure which carries millions of passengers every day.

Following his appointment in 2001, Kiley became one of Livingstone's staunchest and most vocal allies in his battle to oppose government plans to involve private firms in modernising the system.

Livingstone said Kiley, who will stand down at the end of January 2006, will continue to act as the mayor's transport advisor.

"Bob has overseen the transformation of London's bus service, with two million more bus journeys each day, introduced the world's largest congestion charging scheme and begun the largest investment programme in London's transport system since the Second World War," the mayor said in a statement.

Roger Evans, the Conservative transport spokesman in the London Assembly said he wanted to know why Kiley was leaving.

"We always had serious concerns about Bob Kiley's value for money -- after all he was one of the highest paid public sector bureaucrats in the world. However, we need to know specifically why he quit."

[spsmiler]

Hi all,

as you have seen, Bob Kiley is leaving us in London.

below is a copy of his bio as taken from the TfL website a few years ago - although more recently they have condensed this down to far less information (leaving out the really interesting stuff). As you will see, whilst at the CIA he was more than just a small time operative.

btw, I question whether he actually left the CIA, (can people "leave" that sort of organisation?) or whether he has kept in contact, perhaps for intelligence reasons. His being a member of the Council on Foreign Relations speaks volumes too; I assume he is also a member of the famed Bilderberg Group, although because of a media blackout few ordinary mortals even know that secretive organisation exists.

I would suggest that the timing of his leaving is not unconnected with other events which I wont discuss here, and that there is much more to the publicly stated "disagreement" which caused him to resign than we are being told.

Simon
------------

Prior to his appointment as Commissioner of Transport for London in January 2001, Robert Kiley served as President and Chief Executive Officer of the New York City Partnership. The Partnership, the city's leading business and civic organisation, improves the city's economic climate through advocacy and public-private initiatives in education, job creation, affordable housing, and neighbourhood development. Its membership reflects the impressive breadth of the city's private, non-profit and civic leadership.

From 1991 to 1994 he was President of Fischbach Corporation, a major New York-based construction and engineering company, and in 1994 became its Chairman until assuming his position at the New York City Partnership in 1995.

From 1983 until 1990, he was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). At the MTA he was responsible for five transportation agencies serving the New York Metropolitan Region where he directed the rebuilding of New York's public transportation system and restructured its management. He led successful efforts to obtain more than $16 billion from the New York State legislature for capital improvements to the city's subways and buses, commuter railroads, tunnels and bridges in the MTA region.

Robert Kiley has consulted with corporations and public agencies at the Management Analysis Center (now Cap Gemini) then headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In the 1970s he was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority in Boston and served as Deputy Mayor of the City of Boston.

Early in his career, he was with the CIA, where he served as Manager of Intelligence Operations and then as Executive Assistant to the Director.

Robert Kiley is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Board Member of the Salzburg International Seminar, the American Repertory Theater, MONY Group Inc, the Princeton Review Inc and Edison Schools, Inc. He is also on the Advisory Board of the Harvard University Center for State and Local Government.

A Magna Cum Laude graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, USA, Robert Kiley and his wife Rona now live in London.

[redstone]

Can someone please enlighten me, how were the first underground lines/ stations in London built?

Like how did they manage to tunnel under buildings?

[spsmiler]

Originally Posted by redstone

Can someone please enlighten me, how were the first underground lines/ stations in London built?

Like how did they manage to tunnel under buildings?

They dug up a street with a deep tranch, and after building the tunnel side walls they covered it over, reinstating the street.

deep level tubes were built by tunnelling machine and installing a circle of cast iron metal pieces to keep the tunnels shape.

Since they were mostly digging through clay the tunnels would kep their shape betwen digging and installing the cast iron segments.

Hope this helps, sorry, itsd very brief but I must stop on the web for now - try asking Tubeman on his thread..

Simon

[hkskyline]

Cut and cover is still a popular way of building subways today, over a hundred years after the first subways opened.

[Tubeman]

Originally Posted by hkskyline

Cut and cover is still a popular way of building subways today, over a hundred years after the first subways opened.

Its possible in cities with broad streets like Paris or New York, but impossible in cities like London where virtually all roads are at best only 2 carriageways wide. It is by far the cheapest and quickest method of tunnelling.

[redstone]

So the very first tunnels were built under existing streets?

[AG]

A lot of cut and cover tunnels were built to follow the streets, but sometimes buildings were torn down to make way for the shallow tunnels as they did in London. Buildings were then rebuilt above the shallow tunnels. Even more odd is that there are some facades around the city above these tunnels that have no building behind them. They simply cover up an above ground opening where the smoke from the steam trains escaped before electric trains were introduced.

[Tubeman]

Originally Posted by AG

A lot of cut and cover tunnels were built to follow the streets, but sometimes buildings were torn down to make way for the shallow tunnels as they did in London. Buildings were then rebuilt above the shallow tunnels. Even more odd is that there are some facades around the city above these tunnels that have no building behind them. They simply cover up an above ground opening where the smoke from the steam trains escaped before electric trains were introduced.

Indeed, 23 / 24 Leinster Gardens in Bayswater has houses complete with painted on front doors and house numbers which is in fact just a wall with the railway behind!



You should be able to just about make out the uniformly grey painted windows


This is what you would find if you were to open the front door (if there was one!)

[Tubeman]

Originally Posted by redstone

So the very first tunnels were built under existing streets?

Mostly, but as AG said some of the 'Cut & Cover' lines had no choice but to charge through neighbourhoods destroying everything in their path.

Often, the construction of a line was tied in with a new roadway above instead of following an existing one. Examples of this is the ambitious project to reclaim part of the Thames foreshore and build The Embankment, in-filling the recalimed land behind. This accounted for the District & Circle Lines between Westminster and Blackfriars and the new roadway ('The Embankment') above. The Victorians were almost arrogant in their ambition... In an era of essentially pure navvy power the concept of pushing back the Thames and building a railway along the river bed wasn't alien to them, they just got on and built it.

Often the construction of a new 'Cut & Cover' railway was a good excuse for a bit of old-fashioned 'Slum Clearance'. Between King's Cross and Farringdon (Street) the Metropolitan railway was built largely along the course of the then exposed River Fleet. The River was home to some of the worst 'Dickensian' slums in London, with ramshackle shanty homes backing onto the foetid river which became an open sewer. The railway cut a swathe through the slums, culverted the river (such that there is now no trace of it) and then built a new roadway above (Farringdon Road) so that where once was a huge slum and open sewer there now is a roadway and underground railway.

[Justme]

Apparently, 23 / 24 Leinster Gardens is a joke played to new postmen or couriers when they start the route. They are given something to deliver to the address, but when they get there, they can't find the letterbox, or no one answers the door.

[nick_taylor]

Originally Posted by Justme

Apparently, 23 / 24 Leinster Gardens is a joke played to new postmen or couriers when they start the route. They are given something to deliver to the address, but when they get there, they can't find the letterbox, or no one answers the door.

[hkskyline]

Tube contractor criticises tests for Jubilee Line
Andrew Clark, Transport correspondent
31 January 2006
The Guardian

One of London's busiest underground lines has enjoyed a tangible benefit from the government's controversial public -private partnership with the completion of a pounds 150m programme to attach an extra carriage to every train on the Jubilee Line.

But the head of the consortium which delivered the improvement yesterday spoke of his frustration that stringent health and safety concerns had prolonged the project. At a ceremony to mark the completion of the programme, Terry Morgan, chief executive of Tube Lines, complained that the company was required to lengthen every train at exactly the same time, rather than running a "mixed fleet" of six and seven carriages.

The requirement was imposed because of concerns that passengers might become confused and fall on to the track while attempting to board a seventh carriage on trains which only had six.

"I personally never quite understood why we couldn't run a mixed fleet," said Mr Morgan, who said that this could have prevented a five-day closure of the line at the end of December. "If we had been able to do that, it would have caused less disruption in December." As a further precaution, Tube Lines was required to run each of the 59 trains along the length of the Jubilee Line five times without anybody on board, a distance of 150km, to prove that the extra carriage was safe.

A spokeswoman for the Health and Safety Executive yesterday said 150km of tests were "appropriate" for new rolling stock and pointed out that on the east coast mainline, trains had to run for 1,000 fault-free miles before entering service.

[nick_taylor]

I wonder how that compares to safety tests around the world.

[Justme]

Originally Posted by nick-taylor

I wonder how that compares to safety tests around the world.

I know that Health and Safety are taken to far stricter levels in the U.K. than in Germany. It's almost a new concept here.

I have seen, and constantly see so many examples of unbelievable levels of poor safety from companies in Frankfurt I have started to wonder if there are any laws here.

... walking past a building site on a pedestrian sidewalk which had no barriers around it, when builders started knocking out the glass windows on the 5th floor onto the footpath below. Glass falling all around me, it was seriously dangerous, not to mention all the broken glass on the road. Duh.

... A crane lifting the giant Esprit sign onto the top floor of a major shop on the Zeil, Frankfurt's busiest shopping street, with no barriers so shoppers walked underneath the sign as it was being lifted - Each letter was over a story and a half high, and must have weighted tonnes, if one of them fell... All they had to to was put barriers around the crane and between the crane and the building... but duh.

... The other day I was walking up the steps in the Hauptbahnhof (central station) from the U-bahn. However, cleaners were high pressure spraying the steps with soapy water and didn't bother to put a barrier up. The steps were incredibly slippery. If someone from above had gone off the train and was running to catch an S-bahn or U-bahn and took the steps they would have made a nasty fall. How hard is it to barrier...? Duh.

It's like this on a daily basis here, so I can only presume that the safety tests on the train system is also as slack.

That said, the one about not have mixed 6 car and 7 car trains is totally over the top. There are levels that define good safety practice and fear of law suits - I suppose that's what it all comes down to. We have mixed length trains here all the time, and people don't walk along going "hummm, de humm, la-de-da, let's open this door I can not see, and walk through to the carriage that isn't in front of me, despite the fact I see the end of the train a few yards up... Opps, I seem to have fallen on 400Volts. Ouch, that hurts. la-de-da.. "

[JDRS]

Originally Posted by hkskyline

The requirement was imposed because of concerns that passengers might become confused and fall on to the track while attempting to board a seventh carriage on trains which only had six.

[redstone]

Then do not open the platform doors after the sixth carriage..