On Jul 9, 4:32 pm, "
wrote:
You'll have seen the posters that went up over the weekend,
announcing
the plan to close the whole Victoria Line at 10pm every Mon-Thurs til
late November. Possibly, there won't even be a rail replacement bus!
(Not that hanging around at Finsbury Park late at night is very
appealing). The guards in my local station (Blackhorse Rd) are not
happy. The weekend works will still be happening just as frequently.
It seems clear it's due to Metronet's over-runs. Why can't they just
catch up by employing more staff, paying people and managing them
properly, and continuing doing the works during the nighttime closed
period, even if it takes longer? What about the people who are
working
in town til late, to say nothing of those who sometimes just like to
stay out past 10pm on a school night?!

According to Saturday's FT, the 'arbiter' who is reviewing Metronet's
demand for an extra £2bn taxpayers money over the next year, "is
likely to award less for work that is behind schedule", so I suspect
they are trying to catch up now to maximise their returns, regardless
of the massive inconvenience it will cause to those who live in
Walthamstow and are reliant on the tube. It would be great if we
could force
London Underground / Metronet to overturn this stupid,
precedent-setting plan. Check outwww.tubenightmare.com(my own little
website-
comments welcome) for contact details of who to write to - and please
add your own ideas!

LUL would have agreed the early closures.
The early shutdowns are due to testing the new trains, which can only
be down when the current trains arent running.
They will get an extra 3 hours out of this shutdown, which means that
things should come along a lot quicker in the end, under the line's
PPP Upgrade.

There will also be some weekends when the whole line is closed
(presumably to install the new signalling equipment or carry out tests
on the whole line)

Any yes this will annoy me as that is my route home after having a few
beers after work!

Also regarding Metromess asking for more cash, they are still owed a
lot of money after the Chancery Lane derailment (which was an LUL/
InfraCo BCV ie pre Metronet) cock up. They are probably owed a fair
bit of money from the July 2005 Bombings and other out of scope work.
They do get somethings right, such as improvements in fleet
reliability, but others wrong! And sometimes LUL can make a cock up
that costs Metronet time when they could be improving things or
carrying out maintenance. Such as a when a LUL Train Operator hit the
stops in a depot and derailed, Metronet had cancellations for weeks,
as they couldnt shunt their trains round and do all the usual work!