We've received notification that Transport for London have recently achieved a significant milestone in the project to replace the signalling of the Sub-Surface lines (Metropolitan, Circle, Hammersmith & City and District).  It was announced just over a year ago that TfL awarded a contract to Bombardier Transportation to upgrade the ageing signalling infrastructure, replacing it with the CityFlo650 system, which has been successfully used in Metro systems around the world.  

Agreement has now been reached with confirmation and acceptance of the Bombardier implementation schedule. 

Milestone targets for the installation of new signalling to each line are as follows:

The signalling is key for the delivery of so many improvements to the Metropolitan Line

In addition to delivering significant passenger capacity enhancements (being able to run more trains to compensate for the loss of seats on new S-Stock compared to the A-Stock trains), once complete the signalling upgrade will bring together a number of different service control functions for these lines, currently spread over 13 different locations.  By bringing together all of these control functions in a single bespoke Control Centre in Hammersmith, TfL is expecting to be able to greatly improve their operational control and co-ordination of the entire Sub Surface railway. 

We wait with baited breath, only 40 months to go (although it's effectively 52 because we all know that if anything goes wrong south of Baker Street the service north of Baker Street still collapses). 

We have been assured that the resignalling will be done with minimal line closures. Although with 6 weeks out of 8 of track closures for the Met Line from mid-September 2012 to mid-November 2012 the post-Olympic embargo on track closures and engineering work is well and truly over.