Good morning!
I'm travelling on one of the oldest underground trains
on the network.
This is the Piccadilly Line, with a 1973 Stock,
almost 50 years old now.
Only the 1972 Stock,
on the Bakerloo Line on the tube, is older.
But there are new trains coming to the Piccadilly,
and I'm off to get a train at King's Cross today
to go and see a mock up
of the brand new Piccadilly Line train.
The current Piccadilly Line trains
were built between 1974 and 1977,
with the first one used in service
on the underground in 1975.
86 six-car trains were built, in total.
And they had a midlife refresh in the late 1990s,
where the original transverse seating was removed,
and more luggage space for Heathrow passengers
was introduced.
But I'm off to Goole, in Yorkshire, today
where a new factory is currently being built,
where Siemens will then build half of the new fleet
of 94 trains here.
And as it's an official press trip
I bumped into a familiar face on the train.
Everyone say hello to Tom, from BBC London.
Yeah, we've come to Doncaster.
Normally I make videos
when I say I'm out with the press office.
I mean the TFL Press Office.
And today is not a TFL Press affair.
Today is a London mayor's office press event
because the mayor's turning up.
Is it all right if you're in the front.
Yeah, absolutely.
A quick drive up to Goole takes us to the site
of what's officially known
as the Goole Train Manufacturing Facility.
It's just to the north of the Dutch river,
and the canal navigation that rungs alongside.
If you've watched my Least Used Station Rawcliffe video,
then you'll know that I've walked
right past this spot before.
And you can see clearly from the air
just how large and impressive the site already is,
and is going to be.
We're in Goole, in East Yorkshire.
We're on the site where Siemens have got their factory.
We're here to see a mock up
of the new tube train for London,
as well as also see the state of the factory
where the trains will be built.
I've just realised that new tube for London, NTFL,
is just TFL, Transport for London,
with an N put on the front.
What is that? That's fortuitous, NTFL.
Quite early doors.
I think we're going, no messing,
we're going straight in.
Is it in here? Yes.
We're just going straight in.
No messing. No.
I thought there'd be like an induction, or a briefing.
No, no. No, no. We're outside.
I could see already the new tube train for London.
It's right there.
Here we go.
3, 2, 1.
Welcome. It's a bit there.
And there's a bit there.
All right, here we go, up the steps,
through the door, (laughs).
Right, so, hey, I'm in London's new tube train.
This is just a mock up, I should say.
They put this reflective material in here
that makes it look like it goes down.
Is that? No, it's that, it's there, there.
That's really disconcerting. Okay.
This is what the new moquette looks like.
This will be on Piccadilly line trains from 20,
they're saying 2024 or 2025.
(Geoff knocking on wall) Again, that's just a mock up.
But I'm liking the moquette.
Grab pole's there. Okay.
Tom Edwards from the BBC is here.
Just getting in the way of my video.
You all right Tom?
What'd you reckon?
I'll use you in my video.
(Tom) Very nice.
Tom just said? Very nice.
There we go. Kind of Star Trek feel.
I like it.
Star Trek feel.
Teleporters.
What's impressive
is that this is the press photo,
that's been around for a while now,
of how the train may look.
And the mock up does exactly match the photo.
Also the new six-car trains are going to be air conditioned
and also have walkthrough carriages,
as you currently do on sub-surface S-Stock units.
And that is a complete first
for deep level Tube rolling stock.
This is very familiar to get on the Victoria Line,
where you've got the accessible area here
with the fold-down seats.
Is this wider?
If you'd have all the gubbins under here, as normal.
Note how there's a roundel, just there .
Priority seats.
This seems deeper.
The the carriage line maps.
I feel like normally the carriage line maps
might be a little bit narrower, so that's deeper.
And the advertising panels seem at a more severe angle.
And it was at this point, in this mock up carriage,
that I realised that there were two moquette designs,
and that this is not the final one.
Because this one is, yes.
This is the final moquette
that will be on the new Piccadilly Line trains.
And we can now all start to play the game
of guess the designs in a pattern.
I'll start you off by pointing out
that this is clearly Southgate tube station,
which is a fantastic touch.
Well done, TFL.
If you can work out the others,
leave them in the comments below.
How's the BBC report going, Tom.
Good, fantastic.
You keep getting in the way though.
Show us your fancy stick. Priority, priority.
The internet want to see-- News.
Tom Edwards' fancy 360 camera.
How does it work? I don't know.
The doors are wider too, we noticed.
And the trains are also designed
with sustainability in mind,
reducing energy consumption by 20%.
I'm still not sure, though,
why these new trains have buttons on the doors, though,
when you've not had to press a button
on an underground train, to open a door,
for many, many years,
Right then, should we take a peek
at the mock up cab, as well?
Get to go into the cab.
This is Will.
He's very important at Siemens.
He's gonna come in with me.
Look, this bit, it's clearly a mock up,
'cause it's It's made out of wood.
It is wood. Okay.
But, so Will, oh, we'll go inside.
But how real is? I've sat in the seat.
This is pretty real.
Obviously, this is a demonstrator,
so we will have some small changes
between what you see in front of you.
But you have the main driver's display
but it has a number of the fields you can go through.
So there's two displays.
Display on the left is?
The display on the left is showing, as we can see here,
the cameras as if we were in the station.
And the right hand display?
The right can go through event information.
It can go through maintenance information
all sorts of diagnostics on the train.
Okay, the main control handle.
The main control is. Is there?
Yes. Okay.
There is a cab door here.
You don't have to exit throughout the front.
No. This is emergency only.
That's emergency only. Okay.
And standard, oh, that, does it lift?
That does lift off, yeah.
Oh, it does.
Okay for PAs, and et cetera.
Absolutely. Okay.
All right. Thank you very much.
No problem.
The design of the front of the train
is completely futuristic.
It's unlike any other tube train you've seen before.
It's going to be incredible seeing one of these
speed into a Piccadilly Line station
and completely modernise the line.
And these trains could be coming to other lines, too.
As I found out, when I spoke to the Mayor of London,
who at that point turned up,
and I asked him some questions.
Good morning.
Good to see you.
Nice to see, you won't remember this,
last time we met we were doing Bus Hopper.
So we were doing a bus event.
Remember that one, yeah.
Now we're doing a tube event
Next time we should do a cycle event
or something. Or we could use
the Clipper, or something. We'll do
the Clipper (laughs).
But we're on the new tube for London.
I'm excited.
Are you excited to see it?
It's fantastic.
The wonderful thing is, I mean,
although this is just a,
this is not the finished product,
the Piccadilly Line, the trains we have there, currently,
are from the 1970s.
So what 40, 45 years?
Yeah, it's brilliant, almost as old as me.
(Geoff laughs)
And the great thing about this, right,
is they've got a design solution
which increases the capacity of the trains by more than 10%.
They're gonna be air conditioned.
You're gonna see all the way through.
And it's what we deserve, what we need.
But what's even better is the new trains are made in the UK.
They're made here in Yorkshire.
The skills, the expertise, the engineering,
the equipment, is fantastic.
And so we're helping the economy here,
but they're building trains that are the world's finest.
It's a win, win, win.
You mentioned economy.
My one tricky question for you is,
everyone knows there's a little bit of, (laughs),
little bit of the issue with TFL funding right now.
Might that have an effect with the build of these,
or future build of these?
'Cause they're also gonna come, I believe,
to the Central and Bakerloo Line, as well.
So here's the deal.
When I signed the order with Siemens,
Siemens said, because we've guaranteed them
the order for 94 new trains,
rather than these trains be bought in Vienna,
they would invest in a new factory, here in Goole.
So Siemens, to give them credit,
are building a new factory, which is state of the art.
That's created 750 jobs.
Once this factory opens, there'll be another 700 jobs.
I bet some of the apprenticeships will be beneficial,
but also the supply chain are jobs and business, as well.
Now what Siemens are saying, quite reasonably,
is "if you order more trains, we can invest more."
Right?
So it's, and actually the trains here on the Piccadilly Line
are exactly the same, basically,
as the trains we'd need in other deep tube lines.
So Bakerloo, Central, Waterloo, and seriously,
we save money. Yeah. Yeah.
'Cause it's not a new spec.
Siemens would be able to use this factory.
More jobs can be created.
It's a virtual circle.
The problem is, the fly in the ointment is,
because of the pandemic,
we've had fewer people using public transport.
I hear that's
been a problem (laughs). We've got less money.
So we need the government
to give us the long term capital deal,
which means good news for London,
better trains, not 1970 trade trains,
but also good news for the people here in East Yorkshire.
Honestly, we need to be ordering more things
that are made in the UK.
It's not being nationalistic.
It's just common sense.
But actually, we need that long term deal.
And I think, if the government gives us the long term deal,
we could be ordering more trains, more kit,
it's more jobs, more growth.
It really is a good news story.
Love it. Thank you.
That's it, easy? No, cheers.
Unless you wanna tell me when Crossroad's opening.
That's a joke. (camera person laughing)
No, we don't (laughing).
I could, but I'd have to kill him then.
Well, you can't blame me for asking.
But he wasn't letting on. Oh well.
And so there, we have it, in a nondescript shelter,
on a site which is still being built, here in Goole,
in the east riding of Yorkshire.
Piccadilly Line train's replacing the '73 Stock.
The new tube of London also should, hopefully, be coming
to the Central and Bakerloo lines in the following years.
It's exciting to see them. Brand new moquette, as well.
Any day that there's a brand moquette is a good day.
Thanks very much.
Press subscribe.
See you soon.