Will the Waterloo & City line ever reopen? (Update: now open!)

[Dstock7080]

So are any timetable improvements going down the drain? Historically, the service was only provided when the "City" was at work.

one train is out of service undergoing part-CLIP refurbishment in Waterloo depot

 

[Southernrover]

No change to what currently being offered in terms of service.
when it finally opens longer hours it will be Monday-Friday only.
only 4 trains will be available due to the ongoing refurb project that sees one train being worked on at a time.
There simply isn’t the footfall to justify returning to full service at the moment and the drivers are being utilised on the Central Line which is still suffering from a shortage of staff.

 

[PTR 444]

Will normal service resume during the Bank blockade from next January? Even if commuters don’t return, I’d imagine the other lines would get saturated very quickly with diverted passengers.

 

[Ianno87]

Will normal service resume during the Bank blockade from next January? Even if commuters don’t return, I’d imagine the other lines would get saturated very quickly with diverted passengers.

Another factor will be whether Crossrail is open by then.

Originally, the timing of the Bank blockade was so that the Crossrail central section would be open to help take the load to/from the City.

 

[Southernrover]

There are currently a number of drivers “in training” which will boost the staff availability and allow the W&C to run longer hours. As things stand at present there are no plans to re-introduce a Saturday service (which wasn’t fantastically patronised anyway) but factors such as the Bank blockade will no doubt have an influence on the decisions made by the end of this year.

 

[birchesgreen]

Yes Saturday on the Drain was always a bit quiet, perfect day if you just wanted to travel it for enthusiast reasons of course, could quite easily get a car to yourself!

 

[nlogax]

I look forward to the eventual return of a Saturday service. The W&C used to be a great little shortcut to east London when travelling from SW London.

 

[Vespa]

The W&C is a useful bypass without having to change lines, which is what it was designed for originally.

I can't see it closing for that reason and politically it has to remain open.

 

[davews]

I look forward to the reintroduction of the full service. It is annoying to arrive at Waterloo just after 10am and find it closed. Very convenient link to the Central line (and Liverpool St).

 

[Horizon22]

With regards to footfall, it will be interesting to know because its somewhat a Catch 22 - if you don't open it at other hours, you don't know how busy it would be. And seeing as not everyone is getting off at Bank / Waterloo, modelling based on gateline data for people now taking Jubilee / Northern or any other routes might not be totally accurate either.

 

[plugwash]

You can probablly make pretty good educated guesses based on where people touch in and touch out and whether it would be logical to use the W&C for those journeys.

And if you aren't actually going to Bank is it really that much of a hassle to change elsewhere (e.g. London bridge for the northern line bank branch, Tottenham court road for the central line, Temple for the circle/district and Canary warf or canning town for the DLR).

 

[The Ham]

You can probablly make pretty good educated guesses based on where people touch in and touch out and whether it would be logical to use the W&C for those journeys.

And if you aren't actually going to Bank is it really that much of a hassle to change elsewhere (e.g. London bridge for the northern line bank branch, Tottenham court road for the central line, Temple for the circle/district and Canary warf or canning town for the DLR).

You could also make a fairly good guess based on general rail travel, if SWR have flows of 25% then there's no point opening it more, conversely if it's seeing 80% or more then there'll be more of a case for more services.

 

[Horizon22]

You could also make a fairly good guess based on general rail travel, if SWR have flows of 25% then there's no point opening it more, conversely if it's seeing 80% or more then there'll be more of a case for more services.

I would say its a big assumption that a significant percentage travelling by SWR outside of peak hours is heading to the City, but then again, its not called the "stockbroker belt" for nothing! I do doubt though the types of flows are the same in the off-peak - which appears to be the main bugbear.

 

[The Ham]

I would say its a big assumption that a significant percentage travelling by SWR outside of peak hours is heading to the City, but then again, its not called the "stockbroker belt" for nothing! I do doubt though the types of flows are the same in the off-peak - which appears to be the main bugbear.

I was more thinking that by looking at past data you could have a fairly good guess that once flows reach a given rate that it's worth trailing extending opening times by (say) an hour to see the sort of flows which would actually use it to see if it's worth trying more services more of the time.

 

[matt_world2004]

Origin and destination points fro oyster data can still be used to work out if it is effective for opening the waterloo and city line if the journey would have otherwise been quicker and with fewer interchanges on the waterloo and city it is highly likely that they would have taken the waterloo and city.

This could be combined with historical WiFi data to add waiting to these flows.

Similarly to how they predicted passenger numbers for crossrail and other unopened lines

 

[Joe Paxton]

The W&C is a useful bypass without having to change lines, which is what it was designed for originally.

I can't see it closing for that reason and politically it has to remain open.

It's not going to close full stop, that's for sure.

 

[Lifelong]

I wondered whether any enhancement of weekday services was looking likely. I’ve found myself on the line twice this week and both services (1 was the last of the night) were very very busy…

 

[splashoutradio]

Whilst it's nothing "official", I was informed by a member of staff working in planning at TfL, that the original date to resume a full Monday - Friday service on the W&C was Monday 6th September. Timetable data was released in the run-up to the proposed start date (link to timetable HERE), however this was subsequently withdrawn when the date was pushed back to November.

 

[Southernrover]

Expect to see all day operations recommence sometime before the end of 2021 possibly including Saturdays.
The line will be needed when the Bank blockade starts next January.
When it does restart all day it will only be with a 4 train service as one train is being refurbished as part of the CLIP project.
Which has to be done onsite at Waterloo for obvious reasons.

 

[greyman42]

Expect to see all day operations recommence sometime before the end of 2021 possibly including Saturdays.
The line will be needed when the Bank blockade starts next January.
When it does restart all day it will only be with a 4 train service as one train is being refurbished as part of the CLIP project.
Which has to be done onsite at Waterloo for obvious reasons.

Whereabouts at Waterloo do they carry out the refurbishment? I am not familiar with the City line.

 

[rebmcr]

Whereabouts at Waterloo do they carry out the refurbishment? I am not familiar with the City line.

There is a depot also located below ground, beyond the southern end of the platforms at Waterloo. It is only accessible for stock movements by crane, on a local surface road alongside a shaft.

Before Waterloo International was constructed, there was instead a carriage lift in a slightly different location (but still no track connection to NR nor LU).

 

[swt_passenger]

Whereabouts at Waterloo do they carry out the refurbishment? I am not familiar with the City line.

You can see the depot location on Google satellite view, either side of Spur Road there are trains visible, as it’s not very far below real ground level. The main station is much higher than ground level, much of the LU and W&C concourse areas are not as deep as you’d think. A limited overhaul can be done in one of the depot roads:

Dropped pin

https://goo.gl/maps/NY72ARoWjbNdXBXe6

 

[Mojo]

TfL issued a press release this morning to announce that a “full weekday service” will start on the Waterloo & City line with effect from Mon 22 Nov.

Trains will run every 5 Min, from 06.00 - 00.30, except 06.30 - 09.30 and 16.00 - 19.00 when they will be every 3 Min.

The press release also says that Saturday services will not be reinstated “for the foreseeable future.”

 

[317 forever]

TfL issued a press release this morning to announce that a “full weekday service” will start on the Waterloo & City line with effect from Mon 22 Nov.

Trains will run every 5 Min, from 06.00 - 00.30, except 06.30 - 09.30 and 16.00 - 19.00 when they will be every 3 Min.

The press release also says that Saturday services will not be reinstated “for the foreseeable future.”

This means it will be running every 5 minutes at 11.30pm on Mon-Fri evenings but not Saturdays. I am not convinced Bank is so busy so late in the evenings.

 

[Dstock7080]

This means it will be running every 5 minutes at 11.30pm on Mon-Fri evenings but not Saturdays. I am not convinced Bank is so busy so late in the evenings.

Every 6min after 21.30 and every 10min after 23.30

 

[tom1649]

Every 6min after 21.30 and every 10min after 23.30

That's generous. Every 10 min after 21.30 would probably more than suffice.

 

[Kite159]

I caught the last Bank train from Waterloo on Friday and it was reasonably busy at Waterloo. The platform at Bank was very busy.

 

[telstarbox]

This means it will be running every 5 minutes at 11.30pm on Mon-Fri evenings but not Saturdays. I am not convinced Bank is so busy so late in the evenings.

Bank is fairly busy all evening - quite a big hospitality sector in the City these days, plus people interchange to the DLR who live that way and don't have other line options.

 

[Mojo]

Also don’t forget that from 15th January until mid-May, the City branch will be closed Kennington <> Moorgate, meaning that many customers from the south will probably be using the W&C, connecting from the West End branch at Waterloo.

 

[splashoutradio]

TfL have released the timetable data for services from November 22nd.
If it is of any use to anyone, I've compiled a timetable using this, and it's available HERE.