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London's 'Tube' to get a makeover

August 3, 2015

A train every two minutes - that's what French transport systems company Thales is promising the London Underground’s 1.3 million daily passengers, once it has done a few repairs.

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The world's oldest train system is getting new hardware.Image: Andrew Cowie/AFP/Getty Images

French transport systems firm Thales said on Monday it had won a bid to give a billion-euro makeover to the world's oldest subterranean train system, the London Underground.

Thales said it would upgrade control and signaling systems on four lines of the 152-year-old subway - the Circle, District, Metropolitan and Hammersmith and City lines. In total, the project will be worth 1 billion euros ($1.09 billion).

The upgrades on these four lines, which make up 40 percent of the train network, will lead to faster and more frequent trains, the company said in statement, adding that up to 1,100 jobs and 60 apprenticeships will either be created or preserved.

Work on the trains is set to start later this year, with the bulk of the changes to be felt in 2022. “Final improvements” are scheduled to be completed by 2023, Thales said. The London Underground’s management has vowed to stick to the schedule.

Transport for London (TfL), the government body responsible for public transportation in the British capital, said it would ensure costs were contained. Great Britain has had a number of very public funding disasters for train upgrades in recent history.

In 2010, a private-public partnership to update the Piccadilly and the Jubilee lines ended with TfL taking over Tube Lines, the service provider doing the upgrades, after the company had a funding shortfall.

jd/cjc (AFP, Reuters)