Where Next for the Bakerloo?

Last modified: 2020-12-15

Introduction

This is the new item I wrote for Modern Railways; see the main Bakerloo page. It is in the form I sent it to them; I have not done a word-for-word check to see what changes have been made, if any, in the editorial process.

COVID

When I finished my book I thought that the future of the Bakerloo was, if not certain, at least well mapped out for the next 20 years or so. TfL has plans to extend the line to Lewisham and perhaps eventually Bromley. These will require funding - somewhere between £3 billion and £8 billion depending on which document you read - and will take most of a decade to build. That money will have to be found from somewhere, but possibilities range from central government through to land levies. Meanwhile new trains, signalling, and power supplies would allow a more frequent service with improved capacity and reliability. Money would be needed for this as well, but it's basically repeating the work being done on the Piccadilly Line; in particular, using more of the trains that Siemens is going to build in Goole.

Luckily for me, though, I ended with "the history of the Bakerloo has shown that the future is always risky to predict". And this, in the form of the Covid-19 pandemic, came back to bite with a vengeance.

The first effect the pandemic and the subsequent lockdown had on the Underground was a cliff-drop fall in the numbers of passengers, and so fares, together with a drop in staff availability. Nevertheless essential workers were still relying on the Underground, including the Bakerloo, to get to work. As a compromise, 37 of the quieter tunnel stations (including Kilburn Park, Warwick Avenue, Regent's Park, and Charing Cross on the Bakerloo) closed so that they didn't have to be staffed, while services were drastically reduced: the Bakerloo had one train every 10 minutes in the tube section and just two trains shuttling between Queen's Park and Harrow & Wealdstone. Normal services, plus Warwick Avenue, were restored in May but the other stations took until the summer to reopen.

However, this wasn't just a glitch. Though the trains are back, the passengers aren't and TfL's income has dropped significantly. Unlike the main line TOCs, TfL didn't get an Emergency Measures Agreement to pay its bills. Rather, Mayor of London Sadiq Kahn had to go cap-in-hand to the DfT and Grant Shapps for money, money which came with a lot of strings attached. But without it, TfL could well have ended up shutting down almost entirely, only running the Woolwich Ferry and a few bus services covered by statutory requirements (there is apparently no legal requirement to run the Underground or anything else).

The main casualties of the financial crisis at TfL were capital projects. Stuff already committed to, such as the Battersea extension of the Northern Line or new trains for the Piccadilly Line, is continuing with only the delays imposed by lockdown. But anything that needs new money is at risk and the Bakerloo has been pushed to the back of the queue again. It now looks likely that work on the Lewisham extension won't start for at least another 10 years, though the route will be safeguarded, meaning it won't open until nearly 2040. There is no indication of when the Bakerloo will get its new trains, but it looks like the 1972 Stock will be running for at least 60 years, far longer than any previous tube train ever has (apart from the few that went to the Isle of Wight).

As I write, the Covid-19 figures are rising again, London is under heavy restrictions, and another lockdown could be on the way. What will happen to the Bakerloo? Nobody knows, and I'm not going to dare to predict.


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