Jubilee line to close

[Nortube]

Apparently the Jubilee line is going to close between Finchley Road and Waterloo for tunnel replacement works due to acid attacking the tunnel segments:
[ click here ]

[railtechnician]

Apr 29, 2013 10:47:42 GMT Nortube said:

Apparently the Jubilee line is going to close between Finchley Road and Waterloo for tunnel replacement works due to acid attacking the tunnel segments:
[ click here ]

I feel for Londoners I really do. LT/LU has been here before, on the Northern line at Old Street in 1962 and again in the 1990s when I was involved diverting comms cabling as the new tunnel was built around the existing reinforced acid attacked rings.

I suspect that in 1962 the passengers were not inconvenienced at all, in the 1990s we had one or two night possessions as I recall which probably affected first and last trains but otherwise did not cut services.

I am amazed that the surrounding clay/soil was not analysed as the Jubilee tunnels were built in the 1970s. I doubt the the acid issue is new and was certainly known in non-LU structures within a couple of years of construction, One building I worked in, in 1975, which had several floors below ground had its concrete foundations attacked by chemical action. LU must have more compiled knowledge than almost any other organisation about the composition of London clay and other soil and one must suspect that the issue in question has been monitored for some years.

If remedial works cannot be done without disruption to passenger services then it is better to shut the area once and do the job than to have it drag on endlessly. There really ought to be a law against public transport services being cancelled at evenings and weekends unless it is a one-off ongoing project. 

[Nortube]

I agree. It would be much better to shut the section of the line down completely and do the work all in one go. There are 30 closure days listed. They could probably get it done in half that time if they could just get on with it. Possibly even quicker if they worked round the clock.

from the BBC [ click here ]
However, according to the rmt,
"The Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union has blamed the closures on
"foolhardy cuts to maintenance and staffing""

so not really a problem with the acidic conditions then, just lack of staff!
Perhaps if there were more staff available in the past, they'd have been able to drill holes in the tunnel wall inbetween trains and pour bleach through them, thus neutralising the acid and so the problem wouldn't be here today

The standard has the sensational headline:
"EXCLUSIVE:
'Wrong type of water' will close down Jubilee Line for more than a month"

whereas the BBC headline has the much more correct headline:
"Central London Jubilee Line shuts for tunnel repairs" (although they should have used the future tense!)

Surprisingly, there is no comment from the rmt in the standard, yet there is one from TSSA.
There was also mention in the standard that I could see last week from the rmt regarding members being balloted for action and strike action on the Jubilee other lines.

Have the standard and rmt had a tiff?

[dave1]

Apr 29, 2013 17:12:18 GMT Nortube said:

I agree. It would be much better to shut the section of the line down completely and do the work all in one go. There are 30 closure days listed. They could probably get it done in half that time if they could just get on with it. Possibly even quicker if they worked round the clock.

from the BBC [ click here ]
However, according to the rmt,
"The Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union has blamed the closures on
"foolhardy cuts to maintenance and staffing""

so not really a problem with the acidic conditions then, just lack of staff!
Perhaps if there were more staff available in the past, they'd have been able to drill holes in the tunnel wall inbetween trains and pour bleach through them, thus neutralising the acid and so the problem wouldn't be here today

The standard has the sensational headline:
"EXCLUSIVE:
'Wrong type of water' will close down Jubilee Line for more than a month"

whereas the BBC headline has the much more correct headline:
"Central London Jubilee Line shuts for tunnel repairs" (although they should have used the future tense!)

Surprisingly, there is no comment from the rmt in the standard, yet there is one from TSSA.
There was also mention in the standard that I could see last week from the rmt regarding members being balloted for action and strike action on the Jubilee other lines.

Have the standard and rmt had a tiff?

I agree much better to close and do the work in one go and they would more than likely finish before the target date unless they found something else or the tunnel collapsed.

Does anyone know what buildings the tunnels go under you would have thought they would check for any possible hazards or is that asking too much.

[Nortube]

London Reconnections have posted an interesting and informative article (with pictures) today, and includes mention of the similar Old Street problems.
[ Click here ]

A pity the standard couldn't have put a bit more effort into their reporting.

[railtechnician]

Apr 30, 2013 22:06:15 GMT Nortube said:

London Reconnections have posted an interesting and informative article (with pictures) today, and includes mention of the similar Old Street problems.
[ Click here ]

A pity the standard couldn't have put a bit more effort into their reporting.

An interesting article, I was unaware of the disused Old Street siding but I was present when the first segments of the original running tunnel began to be removed to reveal the new tunnel built around it.

What is being shown of the trials at Charing Cross suggests a completely different solution, i.e. working from within the existing tunnel rather than around it. Thus it would appear that segments are simply to be replaced with no widening involved. I note that nothing is mentioned about mitigating the chemical issue this time around apart from the inference that the new segments may be similar material to those used at Old Street.

The article seems to support the LUL approach to weekend closures but I think LUL had long enough to plan for a single closure so my guess is that what is to be done this time is as yet not an exact science although in all honesty I would expect solutions to such tunnel issues to have been the subject of discussion, proposals and trials over decades past. IMO when it comes to engineering, LUL is simply not what LT was!   

 

[hellocontrol]

I remember years ago there was a report about this as well as other problems and that was in the 1980s which mentioned all about problems to come so any monitoring they seem to have left it late. There are a lot of non concrete tunnels it is certain areas which are more likely to build up of the problem.

[hellocontrol]

Apr 30, 2013 8:54:55 GMT dave1 said:

Apr 29, 2013 17:12:18 GMT Nortube said:

I agree. It would be much better to shut the section of the line down completely and do the work all in one go. There are 30 closure days listed. They could probably get it done in half that time if they could just get on with it. Possibly even quicker if they worked round the clock.

from the BBC [ click here ]
However, according to the rmt,
"The Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union has blamed the closures on
"foolhardy cuts to maintenance and staffing""

so not really a problem with the acidic conditions then, just lack of staff!
Perhaps if there were more staff available in the past, they'd have been able to drill holes in the tunnel wall inbetween trains and pour bleach through them, thus neutralising the acid and so the problem wouldn't be here today

The standard has the sensational headline:
"EXCLUSIVE:
'Wrong type of water' will close down Jubilee Line for more than a month"

whereas the BBC headline has the much more correct headline:
"Central London Jubilee Line shuts for tunnel repairs" (although they should have used the future tense!)

Surprisingly, there is no comment from the rmt in the standard, yet there is one from TSSA.
There was also mention in the standard that I could see last week from the rmt regarding members being balloted for action and strike action on the Jubilee other lines.

Have the standard and rmt had a tiff?

I agree much better to close and do the work in one go and they would more than likely finish before the target date unless they found something else or the tunnel collapsed.

Does anyone know what buildings the tunnels go under you would have thought they would check for any possible hazards or is that asking too much.

No problem from buildings as such like the Northern line at Old Street was to do with a firm and battery acid there is a report in one of the civil engineers proceedings.

[railtechnician]

One of the biggest problems in subsurface London is voids created in the WW2 blitz. These fill up with ground water over time and that reacts with chemicals in the surrounding strata in various ways and/or becomes an underground lake looking for somewhere to flow.
There are also naturally occurring underground pools and of course London was once a hive of every kind of industry from farming to foundry work, gas production and storage, chemical works etc and there are plenty of nasty chemicals under London as a result of building over the top of various old manufacturing and industrial plants.

Years ago when working on the Northern line between Chalk Farm and Golders Green it was not unusual to have underground water running into the tunnel as we removed segment bolts to hang cable run brackets. The East London line was rotten beneath the Thames, one could snap cast iron with one's bare hands it was so weakened by water ingress. At Hatton Cross the water runs into the tunnel constantly, at Lambeth North an underground flooded void warped hardwood doors and frames as the groundwater found an escape path via the station. At Tooting Broadway a small trickle at the southbound headwall could fill the platform invert right up to the manhole covers in two to three hours when the pumps stopped working.

There are so many examples of water ingress throughout the system, some may recall the leak into the temporary ticket hall 'X' area of Liverpool Street station during the Broadgate development which was only permanently cured by digging up the road above, sealing the ticket hall roof support ironwork and relaying the road.

Of course not all such issues are associated with groundwater, no doubt some will recall the flooding at Charing Cross under Trafalgar Square not too long ago, for instance Belsize Park has running water beneath the platforms and the old Fleet sewer runs through Blackfriars. I have seen more of this than I can now recall and worked in many somewhat damp, to say the least, parts of the system over the years. 

[Jubilee]

Interesting thread, especially your comments railtechnician.
I just can't believe the work will take 30 days of extra closures on the Jubilee. Looking out of the window along the route between Waterloo and Finchley Road, especially when the train pauses 'to regulate the service' there does not seem to be any noticeable damage - though of course I can only see to window level. Having been a daily passenger since 1980, closures like this were virtually non-existent in the 1980s and 1990s, yet now the line has to be closed with alarming regularity, including for the best part of three years for signal changes - though no-one even noticed or mentioned any acid erosion then. What's more, the section between Green Park and North Greenwich was only completed in 1999 - compared to more than 100 years for other sections.
Does any-one know for definite that this work even needs doing? Also does any-one know why some of this work cannot be completed during some of the nights?

Thanks in advance

[hellocontrol]

Any update as to how the work is going or are we going to be told it is running late no surprise or better news they have finished.

[drico]

Feb 25, 2014 18:18:42 GMT hellocontrol said:

Any update as to how the work is going or are we going to be told it is running late no surprise or better news they have finished.

Work is still on going, some Sundays no Service Waterloo to Finchley Road, look up the dates on the Tfl website.

[hellocontrol]

Feb 26, 2014 17:38:13 GMT drico said:

Feb 25, 2014 18:18:42 GMT hellocontrol said:

Any update as to how the work is going or are we going to be told it is running late no surprise or better news they have finished.

Work is still on going, some Sundays no Service Waterloo to Finchley Road, look up the dates on the Tfl website.

Drico I think you have misunderstood me I was after an update on the work I know I can check the Tfl site and if there is nothing then yes but what is the current situation.

[drico]

Feb 27, 2014 8:38:40 GMT hellocontrol said:

Feb 26, 2014 17:38:13 GMT drico said:

Work is still on going, some Sundays no Service Waterloo to Finchley Road, look up the dates on the Tfl website.

Drico I think you have misunderstood me I was after an update on the work I know I can check the Tfl site and if there is nothing then yes but what is the current situation.

Sorry for the misunderstanding, the work is still going on, a engineers train runs from Ruislip to site to do work in the very short time each night when the normal service is not running.

This work is not running late, plus it has not had much effect on the service , apart from a few Sundays.

[hellocontrol]

Feb 27, 2014 13:38:18 GMT drico said:

Feb 27, 2014 8:38:40 GMT hellocontrol said:

Drico I think you have misunderstood me I was after an update on the work I know I can check the Tfl site and if there is nothing then yes but what is the current situation.

Sorry for the misunderstanding, the work is still going on, a engineers train runs from Ruislip to site to do work in the very short time each night when the normal service is not running.

This work is not running late, plus it has not had much effect on the service , apart from a few Sundays.

Thanks for the update.