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In conjunction with the London Transport Museum, TfL will run a steam train along the District line later this year. The modernisation of signalling on the Hammersmith & City, District, Circle and Metropolitan lines means that this will be the last time a steam train will be able to travel through the central section of the Underground.

Details of the steam train tours will be announced later this year.

A VINTAGE steam train will run between Ealing Broadway and High Street Kensington as the London Transport Museum and TfL celebrate 150 years of the District Line.

Three return journeys will take place on both Saturday and Sunday June 22 and 23.

Tickets to travel aboard will go on sale on LT Museum’s website at 10am this Wednesday (27).

It will mark the final time steam trains travel into central London on the Underground due to signalling modernisation for the Circle, District, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines from 2021.

Must cost more per mile than Heathrow Express.

For 26 minutes of steam haulage, I think I'll pass on the opportunity.

It will mark the final time steam trains travel into central London on the Underground due to signalling modernisation for the Circle, District, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines from 2021.

A much needed upgrade
New lines are always more exciting than upgrades to existing lines. On the Underground, the primary objective of any upgrade is nearly always to provide a capacity increase. This is certainly one of the main objectives of the SSR upgrade which is formally referred to as Four Lines Modernisation (4LM) and encompasses the Metropolitan, District, Hammersmith & City and Circle lines (also known as the Sub-surface Railway or SSR).

A major part of the upgrade of the Sub-surface Railway is the replacement of rolling stock. This phase has already been completed. Much needed as the new rolling stock was, it didn’t do that much to increase capacity. The significantly longer trains (an extra carriage length) on the Circle and Hammersmith & City lines certainly help. The extra standing space inside the carriages also helps – albeit at the price of a reduced number of seats per carriage.

The signalling factor
Another objective of the upgrade is to replace the old, unreliable signalling. But it makes no sense these days to replace signalling on a like-for-like basis. Whilst you are replacing the signalling you might as well improve it, where there are quantifiable benefits in doing so.

To get the full benefit of the substantial increase in capacity on the SSR you really need automatic train operation. Normally there is the additional cost of the extra trains required but as the fleet size of the SSR stock (S Stock) was calculated assuming ATO would be introduced, there is no need to buy additional rolling stock in order to increase capacity. The stock is already there sitting in the depots.