Engineering and fleet

So you thought that rolling stock units were checked every 14 days, right? Wrong.

In their wisdom, management have cut this to every 23 days, and are now cranking up the pressure to cut it further, to 28 days or beyond. They even reckon that the new stock only needs a once-over every 60 days.

The...

London Underground has awarded a £110m track renewals contract to ... Balfour Beatty!

Unless there is another Balfour Beatty we don't know about, this is the same one which was a major part of the Metronet consortium, which spent the disastrous PPP years turning in a crap performance while fleecing...

'Maintenance optimisation'? Maintenance cuts, more like!

Management seem to think that checks on trains currently carried out every 14 days need only happen every 28 days. These checks are for stuff like brake block wear and cracks in brackets - problems which have caused lots of problems in the...

It looks like there has been a win for signal maintenance staff, who are no longer under threat of imposed weekend working.

This has been achieved by one thing: solid industrial action. Rather than roll over and accept the imposition of new rosters that would mess up their lives, signals workers...

Yesterday's strike of ex-Metronet signals staff was 100% solid, and even spread to fleet staff who refused to cross picket lines. So when the sub-surface lines had signal failures, there was no-one on duty to fix them and the service was well and truly up the wall.

The picket line at Hainault was...

A stonkingly high Yes vote for industrial action has shown that signal technicians are well up for a fight against management's attempts to impose new, anti-social rosters.

The point about these rosters is not just a few minutes here or there or about some technicalities, but about an issue at the...

Anyone who knows about the electricity that powers our Tube will tell you that if you have an 'earth', then this is something to worry about.

In 'Triangle sidings' on the District Line, there were positive and negative earths in the same area, where there is also bad water seapage. When this...

London Underground is to slash its spending on maintaining the ex-Metronet lines.

• £26+m from track and signals
• £19m from trains
• £18.5m from stations
• Total: £60m

LUL has claimed that it can achieve these cuts without compromising safety. Excuse us while we roll round the floor laughing.

With the...

Drivers and other staff have long demanded proper lighting in deopts for the avoidance of accidents.

Part of the process for achieving this is for management to conduct lighting surveys. However, it helps if they use the equipment properly. It seems that the lux readers were held at waist height...

A cutting to the west of Acton Town needs stabilising. Metronet bosses have come up with a bright idea for how to organise the work - but although they have convinced themselves that their idea is safe, it is far from it.

The plant will be moved onto the site during engineering hours, but the work...