Woo! The Victoria Line Is Now Running Trains Every 100 Seconds For 3 Hours At Peak Times

Will Noble
By Will Noble Last edited 52 months ago

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Woo! The Victoria Line Is Now Running Trains Every 100 Seconds For 3 Hours At Peak Times
Pimlico station with a train at the platform
Rush hour Victoria line trains have started running every 100 seconds. Image: Shutterstock

It never feels you have to wait particularly long for a Victoria line train — but now, they've become even more frequent.

A revised TfL timetable means that Victoria trains are now arriving every 100 seconds (that's 36 trains per hour) for three hours in the morning and evening peak. Previously, trains arrived every 100 seconds for an hour and a half for each peak period.

The speeded-up service will operate on weekdays from 7.15am-10.15am, and 4.15pm-7.15pm. TfL claims that this will increase capacity on the line — which is used by 250 million passengers each year — by 5%. Outside peak time, Victoria line trains will still arrive every 135 seconds.

Woman waiting for a tube train
The Victoria line is used by 250 million passengers each year Image: TfL

Increasing the number of trains on Underground lines is a crucial way of increasing passenger capacity, on a Victorian network that doesn't lend itself to physical expansion.

This excellent article by London Reconnections, recalls John Self, general manager of the Victoria line in the 1990s, and his vision of a 90-second Victoria line service. It's going to be difficult to achieve, but might yet still be doable. Next milestone though: the 95-second service (40 trains per hour).

A man named William Aitken once imagined a tube train that never stopped — which involved the continual of coupling and uncoupling carriages (and general shuffling about of passengers) — although the concept it never made it further than patenting.

Last Updated 04 November 2019

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