CAPITAL FOCUS
‘Lucky, lucky, lucky’ intoned Kylie Minogue, way back in 1987. Admittedly, it’s unlikely that, back in the day, recontrol of London Underground’s sub-surface lines took precedence over the Ramsay Street neighbours in the Australian prima donna’s mind, but she might just as well have been singing about the signals on the Circle, District, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan Lines.
The Four Lines Modernisation has a strong business case based on both capacity improvement and asset replacement. But even so, there has been an element of luck that the sub-surface railway (SSR) snuck under the wire when the public finances were still relatively flush. By comparison, as explained in a companion article (p60), the Piccadilly Line resignalling, which also has a good business case, has yet to be authorised; TfL is campaigning for the green light for it against a difficult economic backdrop.
But also, regular readers will recall, this is the third attempt at cracking the complex SSR project. First, back in Public Private Partnership days in the noughties, Westinghouse was set to undertake the work as part of the Metronet consortium. When PPP failed, thenparent Invensys was compensated for the…
