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

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Djriley27

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If all goes well with testing (Driver allocations etc..) a 'soft' reopening will be a few days before the official re-opening which will be on 7th June. From this date the status message for the W&C will change

At Bank, exits 8 and 9 will be open for the duration of the operating hours of the W&C 06:01- 10:19 and 15:17 - 19:17. The Walbrook exit will remain closed
 
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Cdd89

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Having consulted an early 2020 timetable, the start time isn’t being changed from the pre Covid schedule but the end time has been significantly curtailed; it used to run until after midnight. The loadings of the 10am/3pm/7pm “threshold” services might be an interesting bellwether to restoring the original service.

It’ll also be interesting how well publicised the operational hours are, including on trains; you wouldn’t want southbound Northern Line travellers or westbound Central Line travellers getting off at Bank only to find they should have stayed on to London Bridge or Tottenham Court Road. In particular I wonder if the actual last train times will be publicised or if they will just call it (eg) 10am / 7pm for simplicity as a turn-up-and-go service.
 

Southernrover

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Trial ops cancelled this afternoon due to build up of dust in tunnels.
Tunnels being cleaned today for possible restart of trial ops tomorrow.
 

rebmcr

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Trial ops cancelled this afternoon due to build up of dust in tunnels.
Tunnels being cleaned today for possible restart of trial ops tomorrow.
Extremely interesting, because the common anecdote is that tunnel cleaning mainly deals with human hair, skin particles, and brake dust — none of which have been intensively deposited in those tunnels for the last year...
 

Southernrover

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The dust is circulated and blown about by moving trains.
Something that have been in short supply since last March!
 

321over360

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I’m surprised it saves that much to open only in the peaks (neither AM nor PM is a full staff shift?) - and how busy is Central London at 6 am? - but I suppose TfL know the numbers. Shame for me as my working patterns make me most likely to need the line in the middle of the day; I might just scrape some use from the 3:30 afternoon services.
Central london pre pandemic was very busy in the morning, the first TFL Rail into Liverpool Street was always standing room by the time i boarded it at Ilford at 0509. Also the first Central Line from Epping was again standing room only when i boarded it at Leytonstone at 0530 so there was very heavy train loads first thing in the morning, i always thought the Central line should start up alot earlier due to the amount of demand there was so early in the morning as be better to have earlier trains in the week than bringing back the night tube option

Also must say the Drain has always been a faster route to Waterloo, however due to how unbearably hot Bank station is these days all year round, its a better for me to change at Stratford and take the Jubilee
 

Southernrover

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Soft re-opening for this evenings peak time service ahead of Official re-opening on Monday next week.
Dust issues sorted at least for the time being.
Todays damp weather has helped with the humidity down there, higher humidity = less dust.
 

Adoarable

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I travelled on the Waterloo & City line today, from Waterloo to Bank at around 17:45. So the answer to the question in the thread title is: yes.
 

The Ham

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It’s closed again now

However as the question say will it EVER reopen, and it has been opened then the correct answer is yes.

It also highlights that (given that we've still got a lot of people still working from home) that the worst fears of lines being closed for years so appear to have been unfounded.

I suspect that (talking about the wider use of rail) given its got 50% this week that the worst case predictions of it only getting back to 60% are likely to be wrong too.
 

Dstock7080

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I’ve never travelled on such a clean Tube train before - the floor was shiny!
The W&City fleet was heavily cleaned both inside and out during the closure
 

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rebmcr

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Pretty low key opening this morning, TFL status just says 'good service'. But the Telegraph has picked it up:

(half way down among all the Portugal chaos)
Saying "half way down" a live news feed becomes increasingly inaccurate as more stories are added above it. The publishing time for each story contains a link directly to it (available using 'right click' > 'copy link' or similar in most browsers), such as for this story: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-...sesdeathsindian-variant/#update-20210607-1048

Edit: Though unfortunately the Telegraph website is badly set up and it doesn't load the right section until one has scrolled down manually. :(
 
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davews

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Yep, tried to get a direct link to the Telegraph article and failed. Your link from the time which I had missed, is decidedly useless....
 

philosopher

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Given TfL’s financial woes, what is the likely long term service pattern of the Waterloo and City? Is it likely to go back to 6am to midnight operation on weekdays plus a Saturday operation as it was pre Covid, remain just peaks as it is now or end up somewhere in betweeen?
 

nlogax

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Given TfL’s financial woes, what is the likely long term service pattern of the Waterloo and City? Is it likely to go back to 6am to midnight operation on weekdays plus a Saturday operation as it was pre Covid, remain just peaks as it is now or end up somewhere in betweeen?

The real question is what sort of working patterns will be adopted in the post-pandemic Square Mile and who'll be returning to offices full time as opposed to a hybrid-WFH policy. That will surely influence the shape of future W&C services.
 

Ianno87

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The real question is what sort of working patterns will be adopted in the post-pandemic Square Mile and who'll be returning to offices full time as opposed to a hybrid-WFH policy. That will surely influence the shape of future W&C services.

Will be interesting to see whether peak passenger numbers ever return to the level where the old step-back drivers were required at Bank in the peaks.
 

The Ham

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Given TfL’s financial woes, what is the likely long term service pattern of the Waterloo and City? Is it likely to go back to 6am to midnight operation on weekdays plus a Saturday operation as it was pre Covid, remain just peaks as it is now or end up somewhere in betweeen?

The other question which needs asking is over what timeframe?

It may well be that we end up with something like the following:

Next 2 years, probably a small increase but maybe not by much.

Next 5 years probably somewhere between the two.

Next 10 years maybe nearly back to pre Covid service patterns.

Whilst WFH will have an impact on rail use due to less people in, which also will reduce office space needed.

However overall office space is unlikely to change very much, as such more people will work in the same office space just each of them for less days.

When that happens we could be back to 90% or more of passenger numbers, (and while 14.4 million passengers would be quite low compared to the 15.3 from 2012, it would still likely be enough to justify a fairly reasonable service).
 

Cdd89

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I made a point of using the first afternoon train (15:23 Waterloo to Bank and 15:30 back again) and at that early stage there were 3 other people on the outbound and 6 other people on the return.

When the Northern line temporarily stops calling at Bank later this year, there may be more need for it.
 

davews

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At least they have a prominent notice at Waterloo giving the times it is open. At 1010 I had just missed the last train of the morning of course...
I am not sure Northern Line through Bank will affect the W&C as Bank is on the Bank branch of the Northern. I find W&C particularly useful to get to the Central and DLR.
 

Dstock7080

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I am not sure Northern Line through Bank will affect the W&C as Bank is on the Bank branch of the Northern. I find W&C particularly useful to get to the Central and DLR.
When the Northern Line Bank branch closes for five months from January I’m sure the W&City will become busier, for passengers trying to reach the southern end services
 

bspahh

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These are two videos from the reopened Waterloo & City line. The second one has more commentary.
 

davews

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Celebration trip on W&C this afternoon. Quickest way to get from Liverpool St to Waterloo. Fairly busy but far from packed. And yes, everything seems sparkly clean, even the connecting tunnels at Bank.
 

Southernrover

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Old news I’m afraid. Decision has been taken to keep the existing peak hour only services in place until November.
 

daodao

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Old news I’m afraid. Decision has been taken to keep the existing peak hour only services in place until November.
So are any timetable improvements going down the drain? Historically, the service was only provided when the "City" was at work.
 
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