£1.5billion Tube deal
Siemens wins the contract to build 94 trains for the Piccadilly Line, with potential for a further 15.
NINETY-FOUR Deep Tube trains will be built by Siemens for the Piccadilly Line, in a deal worth £1.5 billion.
The air-conditioned trains will be built at Siemens’ new factory in Goole. They will replace 86 trains introduced from 1975, and the first will be delivered and in traffic in 2023.
The initial fleet will all be delivered by the end of 2026, but the deal could eventually rise to 109 trains. Transport for London intends for one supplier to build around 250 trains for the Deep Tube Upgrade Programme (DTUP), which will modernise the Piccadilly, Bakerloo, Central and Waterloo & City lines and provide an overall capacity increase of 36%.
Upgrading the Piccadilly Line creates an extra 64% capacity by the end of the next decade. Currently it carries 11% of LU’s ridership (207 million).
Mike Brown, Commissioner of Transport for London, said: “These trains will transform the journeys of millions of our customers, and provide faster, more frequent and more reliable trains for decades to come.”
Siemens Mobility CEO Sabrina Soussan added: “Our metro trains travel the equivalent of 60 times around the world each week. With this extensive knowledge, we can drive down lifecycle costs and significantly improve the passenger experience. This has been key to our development of a unique proposition to meet London’s specific challenges, and is essential to help TfL accelerate the growth of the Tube network and improve the capacity and reliability of its train services.”
The trains will be introduced with an operator on-board initially, but they will be able to run driverless.
TfL plans to seek authority for Stage 2 of the Piccadilly Line upgrade, which includes a new line-wide signalling system and at least seven new trains (taking the order to 101). This new system will be designed to increase to 36 trains per hour eventually, which would require a further eight trains. That is subject to affordability.
Currently 24 trains per hour run, but from late 2026 that will increase to 27tph. Eventually, should all 109 trains be delivered, there will be 33tph on the Piccadilly Line.
Each Siemens Inspiro Tube train will be six metres longer and have walk-through carriages and offer 19% extra capacity. The current 1973 stock has an average 32,000 Mean Distance Between Service Affecting Failures (MDBSAF), and the aim for the new stock is 120,000 MDBSAF.
Infrastructure upgrades are also needed, including upgrading the power, platform CCTV equipment and introducing new signalling
systems. Major depot upgrades are also required at Northfields and Cockfosters.
TfL confirmed 22 UK suppliers have been identified within the bid to potentially work with Siemens. At least 50 new apprenticeships will also be created.
Bidders were Alstom, Siemens, and a joint Bombardier/Hitachi venture.