Episode 4 The Tube

Good morning! It's me again.

Below London's streets exists another world.

The madness is my swimming pool.

I'm at home in that kind of water - what can I say?

Every day, 20,000 workers struggle to keep four million people on the move.

What? There's a customer asleep on the platform?

Yeah, get him on a train.

It's not easy, when the Tube is undergoing the biggest upgrade in its history.

You've got five minutes. I want this site cleared.

Now, cameras will reveal an underground world we've never fully seen before.

10,421 mobiles since April.

Listen to what I'm saying. "Pay as you go," yeah? You just went!

This guy's running up the stairs. You need to stop him.

HORN BLARES

We're just the underground part of the city. London comes down here every single day.

It IS part of their world.

It is part of everyone's world.

I love you.

'A very pleasant good morning to you, ladies and gents.'

Welcome to Victoria Station. You have a very lovely and a prosperous day today.

Hope everything goes your way, according to plan.

Don't let no-one cramp your style.

Please move right down all cars, using all the space you can find.

Driver, do your thing. Have a good day yourself.

I like to see people looking happy. You know what I mean? Things are not so easy now.

Without these nice people coming through here, there'd be no us.

Hey, my brother. Yeah, man. How you doing? Have a good day. Respect, man.

Have a nice day. Oh, you're welcome, love.

Take it easy, my brother. Have a nice day. You're welcome.

You know, for such a small station, the amount of people we get in,

and the way we do it... We keep the system rolling.

But sadly, the system doesn't always roll that well.

'This is Victoria. Use all available doors to board this train and move right down inside of the cars.'

No. I won't play sardines.

Too many smelly armpits.

More people want to use the Underground than it can carry.

I do quite like my personal space. There's not a lot of personal space on the Tube.

Take your time, guys, going through. It's quite busy.

Yeah, take your time going through, guys.

It's always busy here. Even after the peak, there's loads of people.

It's mostly people that work in London - like, office folk.

At other stations, after about 9.30 it dies down,

but it's very touristy here. You get loads of tourists.

Step back a little bit for me. Step back a tiny bit, and try it again. There you go, my dear.

Sometimes it's quite hard to manage.

We've had a lot of fights here,

where someone's pushed in in front of someone else.

Step back for me.

'I call it Wacky Races.'

Everyone feels their position on the platform is more important than someone else's.

Take your time. The train comes every minute.

If you don't get on the first, you'll get on the next. It's not a problem.

In the last ten years, the number of passengers has gone up by a third.

Once again, ladies and gentlemen, when exiting the Victoria line platform area,

please use both sides of the up escalator.

Please walk up on the left and stand on the right.

And at Victoria Station, it's turning into a major problem.

This is the busiest station and it is probably the most stressful.

It's just the way it is.

The station was built, I think, 40-odd years ago.

It wasn't designed for what comes through - tens of thousands.

Let too many people down to the platforms

and someone could end up on the tracks.

Running the control room,

Lee is having to make instant crowd-control decisions.

We are getting busy at the bottom of the escalator,

so I might have to ask you to hold the next one.

Every few minutes, he has to decide the tipping point when the barriers have to be closed,

so no more people can get down to the platforms.

Oh, here we go. OK.

Base to Vic barrier. Vic barrier, can you hold them again?

If you can wait behind the gates for me, please. Wait there for me, please.

Wait there for me, please.

Yeah, just cos it's very busy downstairs.

Wait, please. Excuse me! Wait, please.

Next time, wait, OK?

Good morning. Do apologise. We'll ask you, just remain behind the barrier, just for a short while.

'Please remain behind the barrier, ladies and gentlemen.'

-Excuse me. I asked you to do something. Wait behind the gate.

-Oh.

-Yeah.

'Ladies and gentlemen, the London Fire Brigade investigation

'has temporarily closed Euston Underground Station.'

You can't guarantee when you'll get somewhere because of the overcrowding.

Even if you get to the station, you don't know you'll be allowed in. If I could walk, I definitely would.

Oh.

Base to one-six. Everything OK?

If they start blocking up, keep your eye on it.

Also keeping a watchful eye on the crowds

is the Tube's Network Operations Centre.

The system is under a lot of pressure,

given the amount of people we now take.

Over the last 10 or 15 years,

the increase in passenger traffic has been vastly disproportionate

to the amount of new building.

Every day, we, as a network, transport more people

than the rest of the UK rail network put together.

Back at Victoria, things are going from bad to worse.

Yeah, northbound might have a slight delay shortly.

-We've got a train detraining at...

-Warren Street.

..at Warren Street at the moment, so you'll probably find the train will be held. Over.

'They're taking a train out of service at Warren Street.'

They try to hold the trains behind on the platform, instead of being stuck in the tunnel.

Obviously, we don't want people being stuck in the tunnel.

The trains aren't moving,

the platforms are getting crowded and people are still flooding into the station.

'Yeah, message received.'

Lee has to take drastic action.

RADIO BLEEPS

Oh, come on. Yeah, all stair.

Kent, Wilt and Sussex, can you close, please?

In the middle of the morning rush hour,

the gates to the Underground's busiest station have to close.

Sorry about this, guys. We're just a bit busy.

We've got minor delays downstairs.

But it shouldn't be too long, hopefully.

I know it's been bad all week. I'm very sorry.

The Tube has been here before.

REPORTER: Every big city has its transport problem.

London is no exception.

At the peak hours, overloading and congestion have grown more and more serious.

40 years ago, they thought they had solved the problem,

by building the brand-new Victoria line to end congestion once and for all.

Something has been going on under London.

With trains running automatically, with completely up-to-date rolling stock,

the line, in March 1969, was ready for anything.

But they were wrong. Today, London has again outgrown its Tube system.

Hi, morning. All right, I'll see you later, yeah? Cheers. Thanks.

One man thinks he has the answer -

David Waboso, London Underground's Capital Programmes Director.

He's spending £10 billion modernising stations, tracks and trains.

-It's the... What time? 9.32, did you say?

-9.30 train.

-9.30?

But his solution is creating its own logistical nightmare.

A very good analogy of this is if you're in a house and you want a huge amount of work done.

We don't have an option of moving out - we've got to move four million people every day.

London depends on us - we don't have that option.

This is like doing that huge upgrade with everybody living in the house.

It is, because what you can't do is shut it down.

I love it. It's a privilege.

It genuinely is a privilege

to get to do such fantastic once-in-a-lifetime things.

Very humbled by it. Very humbled.

Today, David is finding out what his money is buying him,

at a test track in Leicestershire.

Somebody once described modern trains as "Boeings on wheels".

Hugely complicated,

so there's a lot of stuff on here that needs to be tested.

This is the, er... sensitive edge on these doors.

It's one of those things you just need to keep an eye on.

Basically, one of the problems you have on any train is that

it's a steel wheel on a steel rail.

And clearly, if it's wet or you get leaves on the line,

or ice or snow, the trains can slip.

So, what we have are various means of managing that interface between the wheel and the rail.

One of them is fairly basic stuff but very, very good - it works -

which is to inject some sand

in front of a certain number of wheels at the right time.

-But the proof is in the driving.

-Am I going to be able to have a go?

-If you want to.

-Yeah, thanks. I'd like to see if I can stop it in the right place.

David wants to know what his new train set feels like from behind the wheel.

-Have you driven a train before?

-Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

OK, David, you can increase to 100.

WHISTLE BLOWS

Tottenham Court Road Station in central London.

When it opened in 1900, it carried 20,000 passengers a day.

Today, it's 150,000. It's being rebuilt to become six times bigger.

First, though, the Underground must do the unthinkable -

closing off the station's connection to the Northern line for seven months.

Victoria isn't the only busy interchange where passengers are feeling the pain of modernisation.

Here at Tottenham Court Road,

the Northern line platforms will close until December.

'No Northern line interchange until the end of November.'

-Hiya. It's closed.

-Closed?

-Yeah, Northern line. Where are you going?

-Would you like some help?

-Where's the Northern line?

It's not working for seven months from here, now, but where do you want to go?

-It's all right, I'll get the bus.

-You sure?

-Yeah.

-OK.

Deep below the station,

engineers are in the early stages of this ambitious project.

They're starting with the most challenging task

of carving out new tunnels right under the city.

Basically, we're building passenger tunnels

to ease the congestion on the Central line, cos the Central line

is just about three metres past that side wall there.

So, instead of having to go up, through the tunnel,

through the ticket hall, you just come off the Central line,

straight through here and down into the Northern line.

Building a new passenger tunnel 30 metres under the ground

in London's soft clay is not without its challenges.

When you take out ground,

the natural desire is for the ground to want to come down and fill the void.

So, we dig away a little bit and then we reinforce it.

By reinforcing it, I mean we spray the shotcrete lining,

which is the reinforcement to hold the ground back.

Working 30 metres down means getting equipment in, and rubble out, is a tricky operation.

My job is banksman and slinger. Slinger - that's what I do.

Put it this way - I'm the eye to the crane driver, because he can't see everything here.

So, I'm to direct the crane driver, what to do, and I'm here

to take the loads off, materials down again, to service the shaft.

That's what that means.

INDISTINCT

When I grow old, one day I'll walk around the station and say,

"I was in this shaft. I was in that shaft." You understand?

As well as building a brand-new customer walkway,

connecting the Central line to the Northern line,

the engineers also have the much more difficult job of improving access to the existing platforms.

And to do this,

they've had to temporarily take over part of the station.

Beep-beep.

We're on the Northern line platform,

so the trains are running outside this hoarding.

So, we've closed off a section of the platform

to do our work behind, but the trains are running in the meantime.

The only way of creating the space necessary to construct

better access points to the platforms is to reshape the original tunnel walls.

We're turning, basically, the two tubes - the two circles - into C's.

We're taking the curved section out...

..between the two running tunnels,

and replacing it with straight props.

And then there'll be stairwells in-between.

There's a lot of hand work - hand mining, hand excavating.

There's no real machines or anything, cos it's just all very old-fashioned, sort of traditional mining, I guess.

And the concrete itself is 100 years old, so it's rock hard. It's...

When the men have been jackhammering,

the concrete is so hard that there's sparks.

There's actually sparks flying, so...

We've set up little mini railways, just to get the materials out,

cos you don't have the luxuries on a big site, where you've just got a crane overhead all day.

You've got to keep going, keep fighting.

Keep nagging at the men, driving them on. That's the name of the game.

That's what we get paid for.

I've been down holes 44 years.

I'll probably die in one, you know?

That's the way it is.

This is Tottenham Court Road.

There is no Northern line service at this station.

No Northern line interchange until the end of November.

Elsewhere in the station, customers wanting to use the Northern line

are having to be redirected.

Customer service assistant Barry Griffiths has worked here for 16 years

and this is the biggest disruption for passengers he's seen.

So, Liverpool Street? Come over here, I'll show you.

So, you go from us, Liverpool Street, and see the little...

See the pink line?

-Yeah.

-Hammersmith & City, just change there.

-Thank you.

-Nice to meet you. Cheers.

The power of the map, very important tool.

You know, because we've got people

from every part of the world who don't speak English.

They always say, "Do you speak Spanish? French? Italian?" "No."

But you bring them to the map.

You go, "You're here." They go, "What? Que?" You go, "You're here."

Then you ask them the direction. It's not, "Direction?"

It's, "Direzione?"

Never say "destination", they don't know what that means.

Men are the same, they all want to be leaders.

They're with their families. They never know where they're going.

Would you like some help, sir?

Would you like some help?

The Tube is not just getting bigger stations to cope with demand.

More than £2 billion is being spent on tracks and signals as well.

As part of these works, the Victoria line has been out of action

over a Bank Holiday weekend while a new signal was put in.

But when the line opens the next day,

it's clear that new equipment creates its own headaches.

We've got a signal failure between Seven Sisters

and Highbury & Islington.

It's creating delays on all Victoria line services this evening.

The new signal hasn't been fitted properly,

and so in the heat of August, the Tube suffers what its bosses dread most.

We have to stop everyone, otherwise it'll get congested.

A line suspension.

At the Network Operations Centre,

the Tube's controllers are racing against the clock.

This morning, about seven o'clock,

we had a signal failure and that's a big problem for us.

But we got it fixed and it was OK, then it failed again.

It is now, as you can see, 17.30.

We were hoping to get this back before the evening peak.

It hasn't turned out that way.

So, what we've done is a hard choice.

We've decided to suspend the Vic

so we can go and fix it.

So, you're under a lot of pressure at this moment?

London's under a lot of pressure. The Victoria line carries a lot of people.

Ladies and gentlemen,

we don't have a northbound Victoria line service at present.

So, if you can use alternative routes, please do so.

-How do I get to Vauxhall.

-Vauxhall?

You might be better to use the bus, because we won't let anyone down.

-Where do you want to go?

-Brixton.

-Vauxhall.

For Vauxhall, all I can advise you to do is get the bus from upstairs.

-All right.

-I ain't getting the bus!

Person who's going to Brixton, you'll have to do the same, unfortunately.

Andy?

-Back up? Chris?

-They're waiting...

They've done all the work they're supposed to do, yeah?

All we're waiting for is replace the track fuses in the signal relay room

and then they're going to give an all-clear.

Right, OK. So, the moment of truth, then, is minutes away.

-Seconds.

-Seconds away? Right.

So, you've got all-clear and normal signalling? Excellent.

OK, then. Thanks so much. We've got normal signalling

and about to send the first train through from Seven Sisters.

Brilliant. The problem is between Seven Sisters and Finsbury Park, about there.

But just when they think it's fixed,

the signal fails again.

So, the track dropped and picked up as it should've done,

-but they didn't have full signalling.

-Yeah.

The question is, what made it bob?

-I want to go to Highbury & Islington.

-There's not...

VOICES ON RADIO

Over an hour later, there's finally some better news.

So, in terms of the second train, which is train 73,

that's now gone through as a passenger train.

Great. So, we've resumed, basically. We've resumed the train service.

All we've got to do now is build it into something

that can do something, can shift people.

And is the train on its way, yeah?

The signal has been repaired

and trains are starting to run again, with massive delays.

It's been quite horrendous since about quarter to eight this morning.

We are gradually getting service back.

I don't see us being able to run

a normal service before the close of traffic tonight.

But the Victoria line, it's...

It's a bit like being Forrest Gump.

You never know what you're going to get!

London wouldn't function without the Tube.

The difficulty for the people who run it is how little of it

any of us can really see.

Apart from the train, everything else you don't see.

You don't see the power, the track, the control system, the signalling,

the radio, you don't see any of that as a customer.

People just take it as part of life, part of the furniture.

It's something people are familiar with and take for granted.

The fact that we have to take it away from people sometimes

when we do this work is a huge inconvenience,

because they've built their lives around it.

At Tube headquarters,

a postmortem on the Victoria line shutdown is under way.

David Waboso wants to hear

from those responsible for the signal failure.

We all present and correct?

I have to say, we really need to understand the issues

with the track circuits and make sure they don't happen again.

We've had a special workshop this week

that was looking at what used to be called Black Tuesday

until we had Apocalyptic Black Tuesday the following one.

We went through each and every disturbance,

looking at what could we have done better,

because we were swamped with reaction.

Well, we should all look at that and weep.

One lady missed her exam.

Another lady missed her train

and then had to go and buy a full purchase of a new ticket.

People saying, you know,

we were deprived of the service for three whole days

over the Bank Holiday and then effectively the following day.

You can just feel the pain and the rage.

We really don't want to be there again.

It's not going anywhere till I am personally assured

why it went wrong and why it will never happen again.

Understood.

You have a product that you didn't understand,

that was being installed, and this must be an issue for you.

-Absolutely.

-You need to explain that to me.

-Yeah, absolutely.

I could go into some definition of that now,

but now's probably not the time

because we've had to do a lot of review around that

and those changes are being implemented now.

And I want a name, yeah?

A name against who is accountable in this room for fixing it.

You going to be all right on the escalator? Be careful.

-It's all right, I know.

-Yeah? Be careful.

-Hi. Is he going to be all right on the escalator?

-Yeah.

You sure? All right, just be careful, OK?

Especially with his fur and that, be careful. All right?

At Victoria Station, the congestion is getting worse,

even outside rush hour.

An escalator is being replaced. Thanks to the upgrade,

all Victoria line passengers here now have just two escalators.

This is now ten o'clock in the morning, it's well past rush hour.

There's people now going down two on every step with their bags

and as they step to get off and pull the handle out

on their little travel luggage, people pile up behind them.

You can see that one stumble and people are on top of each other.

It does now mean that if one of these fails,

we'd have to close the station.

You can't run the station without those escalators. It's that critical.

The repair team will take three months to replace the escalator.

Graeme wants to make sure they're on track.

I'm just at your back, watching.

Don't stop for me.

That enough?

Bit more?

I'm basically taking out

almost the entire machine

and replacing it with brand-new parts, so extend its life

by another 20, 40 years, depending on how much it gets used.

Like my knees, it's tired and they need new ones.

When you look at it, see how that's bent?

-Goodness me.

-Yeah?

-You ready for the next step?

-Yeah.

-Here it comes.

Each of the escalator's 104 steps

has to be installed one by one.

Down a bit.

A lot of the physical works you can see

will be complete inside five or six, seven weeks.

Then it's the other bits and pieces. It's getting the alignments.

It's like you've taken out the entire contents of your car

and you're putting it back in and make sure it's all perfectly aligned

and it runs smoothly for the next 40 years.

The tolerances are down to millimetres either side,

in-between the gaps on the steps

so people can't get their fingers in the steps or trapped in the sides.

It's technically challenging.

-Everyone clear?

-Yeah.

-Are you going as fast as you can?

-Yeah.

Well, I think I am.

Other people might not, but I do.

-TANNOY:

-Ladies and gentlemen,

the Circle and District lines are partially closed...

We've had a complaint letter before,

are we building it with Guatemalan pygmies because it takes so long?

"I could do it myself in a weekend with some friends."

The temptation to write back and say "Oh, really?" is enormous.

The biggest single improvement to the Victoria line can be found

at Northumberland Park Depot in northeast London.

It's home to all 43 existing trains on the line...

..and from now on, the Tube's great new hope.

47 new trains are being delivered, one carriage at a time,

by road from the factory in Derby.

The 40-year-old trains are like your old ZX Spectrum, yeah?

This is like your new iPad, yeah?

Basically, they're faster, and with that

you get more trains through the stations.

More trains an hour, yeah?

More passengers being taken down on the line.

-So, do you think they're better?

-I think they're better, yeah.

The old trains are given one last job before retiring.

They're being used to push the three-tonne new carriages into the depot.

TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS

Once all eight carriages are delivered to the depot,

the train will be ready to join the 30 other new ones already in service.

And the old model will no longer be needed.

What will happen to the old train now?

Um... Well, we'll say goodbye to it. It'll be going down for scrap.

We'll set up trip cocks on it and then it'll be sent down to Acton

and from then on, off to scrap.

Good afternoon, ladies and gents. This train will depart

in approximately two minutes. Thank you.

Oh, Mum? Yeah. Can I have carrots instead of peas? Yeah.

And just the bacon just slightly crispy on the edge. Thanks.

I do love this part of the line. It's just... I don't know why.

TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS

You can feel all that grey, horrible,

suburban, utilitarian, post-apocalyptic concrete rubbish

just disappearing in the background.

You can just feel the warmth of the city, just throbbing.

I would love to preserve one of these when they're going.

Really. Seriously.

If not the whole carriage then just the cab

and the missus, she's well up for, she said,

"If that's what you want to do, you do it. I know it means a lot to you."

Just the cab section, that's all. Stick it in the front room somewhere

and just paint a big black circle around it.

While she's watching The X Factor I can sit here...

"Oh, look! I used to drive these!"

At Northumberland Park Depot,

all the new trains have now been delivered.

But before heading to the scrap yard,

the very last 1967 train is being given a ceremonial send-off.

Last '67 stock on the Victoria line

going out today.

And it's the end of the old girl.

It is an honour to drive the last one out, so yeah,

bringing it out the depot for the last journey,

bit of an emotional day.

HORN TOOTS

This is the last of the trains which started this whole revolution

of automatic train operation in the world.

Let's not forget these were the first trains to run

without a driver driving it, so it's good to see them go

because it's the next step of the upgrade of the Underground.

How we doing, all right?

What time is 247 due?

Through here I believe just before quarter to seven.

-I work on the District line at West Brompton.

-Right.

-And I've come from work.

So, you're going to have a ride on this?

-I went on the first ever Brixton train from here...

-Really?

-..when the line opened.

-What, in 1960... When was that? '71?

-'71.

You've got to be guest of honour tonight.

We're building up quite a crowd now.

'Ladies and gentlemen, this is the driver speaking.'

This is the last 1967 stop on the Victoria line.

Those of you leaving us, I hope you've enjoyed your journey.

Can you just show me what you're putting up?

It's a home-made poster by Ken over there.

And it's to notify people that it is the last train,

in the hope that they will understand and realise

that an important part of London transport's going for good today.

-Do you all know each other here? ALL:

-Yes.

Er, I'm 16.

How old are you all?

-16.

-I'm 15.

The average age is sort of 16, so...

-And I'm the senior man at 18.

-THEY ALL LAUGH

I suppose the stereotype is old men with big books who sit on the end of a platform,

but there are younger people about as well.

-We do this often, like every weekend.

-Really?

-Yeah.

After school, after college, we do it quite often.

-Why do you do it?

-It's enjoyable.

It's a hobby, really.

People have places in their heart for footballers and musicians,

and some people have it for trains - it's just different, you know?

-It's just not socially accepted.

-Yeah.

Just think, when this train came out of the production line

there was the Mark II Cortina was just being announced.

You know, who has one of those on their drive?

Is there one still left?

-Here it is.

-Yes, yes.

Give that door a bit of a shove. Its last day today!

-You've never had such a full train, have you?

-No, not round this time of night!

Anyhow, well done. Thank you very much for doing that.

OK, thanks, ladies and gentlemen.

Last '67 goes to the depot.

Thanks, everyone, for coming along. It's been a fantastic afternoon.

I hope you've enjoyed it as much as we have.

And looking forward to our new trains doing the service that these have done.

HORN TOOTS

APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

Three cheers for the '67 stock!

-Hip-hip!

-Hooray!

-Hip-hip!

-Hooray!

-Hip-hip!

-Hooray!

-And one for luck. Hip-hip!

-Hooray!

At Tottenham Court Road Station,

the Northern line platforms are meant to be opening soon

and the engineers are starting to feel the pressure.

That's the granules, yeah?

The tunnels have been re-shaped, gaining the engineers the critical

extra two feet of space they need to build bigger passenger walkways.

-Still doing it upside down, Frank?

-Yeah!

-Yeah?

-Yeah.

Now the platform has to be got ready for the public again.

How are you feeling at this point in the process?

Stressed. Not unduly, just stressed.

Personal pressure on my shoulders

to progress the work safely.

The days are counting down.

When I get my teeth into a job, and I like a job,

and I can see the end of a job,

I want my managers to be happy

and I want to walk away from here feeling also like, job well done.

It's organised chaos and it gets done. Everyone works hard.

I'm scratch coating at the moment,

building that top ready for the curve, on the top of the wall.

This will take tiling in the end, so it's got to be spot-on.

Excuse me, come right round, please.

We're empty round here, come round. Far side...

On the station concourse,

Barry Griffiths always keeps the public moving any way he can.

Keep pushing, keep pushing, push!

Push, you need to push!

No, too late. Come back, then, mate. Come back, come back. Come back!

If you can't push, come back. That's it.

Sir, we have a door for you next time!

I'm looking for The Tottenham pub.

-Everybody is! It's just there - upstairs, immediate left. It's just there.

-Great, thank you.

-Would you like some directions?

-Please.

-Where do you want to go?

-Shaftsbury Avenue.

-To see the show?

It's good, it feels good cos they're all happy.

All happy, all dressed up, all going somewhere,

been somewhere, been shopping...

probably going to a party or out for a drink.

See all these girls dressed up, they're probably going somewhere, look. All over there, looking good.

I can see by their appearance... They're from the Midlands.

Londoners are different.

They dress differently.

Different haircuts, different styles.

Different type of shoes.

Afternoon!

Tourist!

Well, obviously the theatre's turning out, so I know

it's roughly about 10.15, 10.20,

and we'll get busy now for about another 25 minutes.

Then a bit quiet, a bit of a lull then,

then we get the people out of the pubs then till 11.30, 11.45.

Then we get the people who've forgotten it's the last trains and start running,

but they can't get in.

Up go the clubbers. There you go - just see them going up there.

They'll be out all night now.

-Did you hear that?

-Yeah.

-Mop and bucket.

-Was it toilet?

-Wee, he had a wee.

-Wee-wee.

Wee-wee. Someone's had a wee-wee on the platform.

We have had number twos as well, I can assure you. We used to have the secret crapper.

Yeah!

On this platform, right at the end. Every week, different day.

Never caught them.

We don't think they did it...

We think they brought it in their pocket and dumped it.

From midnight onwards,

the last trains start coming through the station.

And it's Barry's job to make sure that customers don't miss them.

What are you doing up this time of night?!

Getting a sherbet? Getting a drink?

-I'm pissed, I'm so pissed.

-HE LAUGHS

Are you really? Are you going to get home all right?

Don't hang about, and don't fall asleep on the train!

-Where'd you go? Where've you been?

-Lovely to see you.

Haven't seen you for ages.

-Are you going home now? Got far to go?

-Erm, Morden.

Oh, nice, be careful. Don't talk to strange people, all right?

Night. I love you.

Have a nice one.

Cheers. Cheers, Tone.

I treat these people like my friends, like mum and dad, like my best mates.

Everybody needs help and everybody's OK.

There's very few people who are rubbish, or horrible.

Vast majority of people, 99% of people are great.

Hurry up, hurry up!

For some drivers, the arrival of new trains

is making them think about their future.

Good morning, our next station is Stonebridge Park.

-Do you like the Bakerloo line?

-I do.

It's old.

It's old stock, it's '72 stock.

There's no computers on it.

If anything goes wrong, you've got to use your brain.

It's a challenge and I like that.

Whereas I believe, the new trains like the Northern, Victoria, Jubilee,

they have computers and computers tell you what the problem is.

What will happen when they automate these trains?

I hope to be retired by then!

Victoria line train operator Boz Gunduz is starting his shift.

He feels the new trains are already making his life easier.

Ladies and gentlemen, this train is now ready to depart.

Please stand clear of the closing doors.

Stand clear of the closing doors, please.

As you can see, these are much nicer to drive.

One-handed operation.

Easy on the elbows and shoulders. I remember driving the '67 stock,

the old stock, and you had to have one hand on the dead man handle,

holding that down, while the other hand held the traction break controller,

and had to move it up and down and break and accelerate.

When I was a little boy, I wanted to be an astronaut.

Totally honest with you, I wanted to be an astronaut.

I wanted to go to space, but, erm...

instead of going up, I've gone down!

Instead of going up in the air, I've gone underground.

What's the answer to all this congestion?

I'd love to say, "Yeah, let's get more trains."

The problem is, you put more trains on the line...

It's like a road, it's like any road with a car.

You can put more cars on it, you can carry more people, but eventually

it'll start slowing down as there's too many cars to move around.

Ladies and gentlemen, just remaining on the platform

for a few moments to regulate service in front and behind of this train.

Ladies and gentlemen, this train is now ready to depart.

Please stand clear of the closing doors.

The new trains do carry more passengers,

but the Victoria line controllers still face a fundamental problem.

At any one point, we have more trains than we do platforms,

so if we were to get stuck now, we've got 31 trains...

we haven't got enough platforms to put them all into,

so if something goes wrong, very quickly you've got trains stacking up all over the place.

General message from Seven Sisters signals

to trains between Seven Sisters and Kings Cross on the southbound.

We've just been advised we've got a train with door problems.

It maybe has to hold in platforms and be delayed departure, et cetera.

Just bear with us, we will get you on the move as soon as possible.

At Seven Sisters Station, at the north end of the Victoria line,

one of the new trains has suddenly stopped dead.

Its driver is forced to get out of his cab and investigate.

The train's doors are fitted with a sensitive edge

which automatically stops the train if something is caught in them.

But they're just too sensitive, causing frequent delays.

The sensitive edges are a major issue at the moment,

where the doors close if you get something caught into it.

It can be something silly like somebody leaning against the door or a bag strap caught

and people pulling at the bag strap, things like that.

He then has to go and investigate, and if it's the last car,

he's got to shut his train down, walk all the way to the end of the platform,

find out what it is, and it can be something as silly as a piece of paper

caught in the door which stops the mechanism from closing,

but it's these things which slow you right down, cost you 2, 3, 4 minutes.

Are you the driver?

I'm the driver. What happened?

While the driver makes his checks,

the train at Seven Sisters remains on the platform.

And all the trains behind it are stuck as well.

This isn't good.

OK, so if you look at Green Park.

This is your southbound. You ideally should have the next train here.

But it's not, your next train is way down there.

Oxford Circus is six stations away from the stopped train

on the Victoria line, and they know it's about to affect them.

I've just had a report of sensitive edge doors.

In most cases, if he can't reset the doors,

he'll have to detrain that train, take it out of service and...

we've got trains stacked up behind it,

so we need to get that train on the move pretty sharpish.

A minute more and we'll end up having to shut.

Ladies and gentlemen, I apologise for having to stop in the tunnel.

Just a little bit of congestion on the line ahead of us is causing this.

We're just waiting here for the platform ahead to become available,

and hopefully we'll be on the move fairly soon.

It's things like this that overall congestion can cause.

I don't know what the cause is ahead of us,

but obviously, we've got too many trains in this section now,

we haven't got a clear run to the next platform, we're having to wait at this signal.

We're all now piled up like a big traffic jam.

At Oxford Circus, crowds of people are still flowing into the station.

But the trains aren't coming through regularly enough to clear them.

The northbound Victoria line services are being held at the platform for a short while.

This is to regulate the train service.

People trying to exit the platform, then these ones,

they want to get on the train.

-Sometimes, that can get quite scary.

-3-5 on platform one.

3-5, are you receiving?

Suddenly, the balance tips. In the middle of rush hour, the decision is made to shut

all the station entrances before it becomes dangerously overcrowded.

Staff, can we man the gates, please? Can we man the gates, please?

Sorry, sorry.

It's a decision that's never popular with customers.

Listen, don't swear at me!

I don't have to have you swear at me. You want to swear, go elsewhere.

I've had people who will stick their feet in the door

and try and shove you out the way.

You're like, "We're closing the gates, you're not coming in."

Within minutes, a crowd of hundreds has built up outside the station.

It's part of the travelling.

If you get upset about it, you'll end up blowing your top.

If you have to use the station, you have to use the station. What else?

I have come to expect it. But...there's not a lot you can do about it. It's just frustrating.

Most times, we'll try and suggest alternative routes.

A lot of them are just lost if you ask them

to go to any other station, so most of them just stand there,

come rain, come sun, come snow, whatever it is.

So, yeah. They will stay there until we open.

After six minutes, the train at Seven Sisters is moving again.

And three miles away, the customers at Oxford Circus are finally let back into the station.

-Next customer, please.

-Hello.

-Good afternoon. Where are you going?

-Victoria Station.

-£4.

-£4.

-Expensive.

I've been on the job now 31 years. 31 years, in September past.

Quite a long time, but I do like it. I like meeting the people, you know?

A bit of camp in-between, but that's life.

Hello there, next customer, please. Pop in your little card, please.

And your secret PIN number, please. Your balance is 5.20. Do you need a shiny holder?

-Listen, take care.

-Thank you.

Bye-bye.

David Waboso wants a conference call with the factory making their new trains.

Problems with doors have caused almost a quarter of all

the Victoria line's delays this week.

But there are also headaches with new trains on other lines.

A software glitch has been discovered.

How did that get through factory testing?

How did we only see this in service?

'It's the irregularity... the frequency of which the fault will occur

'and it doesn't fall within the time span of the work we do here or the testing we do.'

Well, then it means we have to do more testing.

We cannot afford to bring this kit in service in this way.

We've had these discussions time and time and time again.

It's just not acceptable.

'What we're doing is identifying the root cause and fixing the root to it.'

I know that's what we're doing, but we're doing it in service.

'OK.

'Peter, there's an outstanding engineering justification

'that related to a sensitive edge door rubbers being a bit proud.

-'We were promised that last Friday.

-This is the 3mm, 4mm.

-Yeah.

'I'm sure they are looking at it today.'

-Well, can you share that with me, please?

-'Sure.'

In a very clear way what needs to be fixed.

You know, I go back to basic engineering here - what is the design reliability?

Is it meeting it?

What was the testing regime to validate that, and why is it failing in service?

It's going to become like a cracked record - I'll say it every time.

-'Yup.'

-Thank you.

To be honest, the core issue is how much we continue accepting these trains with this volume of defects.

Luckily, in the Victoria line train shed,

engineers think they have a solution to their door problem.

Can we do two more?

Before we close it, can I have the right angle?

These are too safe.

It brings down the reliability of the train.

And that's why we are trying to make it intelligent.

If you look at the old kind of sensor,

when there's clothing trapped between the doors

and someone pulls it from inside, it doesn't do anything,

it doesn't activate the sensitive edge. But when the pulling is from outside,

it's intelligent enough to understand the pulling is from outside,

and activate the sensitive edge and puts the emergency brake on.

It is called intelligent sensitive edge, as opposed to sensitive edge.

Replacing the door edges is going to cost £3 million and take six months.

In the meantime, the trains will still run with delays.

It's 4am at Tottenham Court Road Station.

Time for engineers to hand the Northern line platforms back to the public.

What do you think the customers will think?

From a public's perspective, a bit of a disappointment,

but from our perspective, it's going to look absolutely wonderful

compared to what it has been through, this environment.

It already... To me, that looks...like art.

The only evidence of the massive construction work

is three blue hoardings, hiding new platform entrances

which will eventually join to the passenger walkways.

An hour later, it's time for the station to open.

Customer services assistant Barry Griffiths is on the early shift.

It's very exciting. It's very exciting, yeah.

It's lovely to have it back.

Fantastic.

The great thing is they've kept all the murals, which is lovely.

They actually look really good. They look great.

I think customers will be expecting a lot more.

They'll think it's going to have been completely refurbished,

ie, you know, it's up top spec.

What they don't realise is this is the start of it, this is the prelim,

when they're just getting it ready to do the big...the big bit.

Bang on time at 5.42, a train rolls into the station.

It's the first time in seven months that a train has stopped at this platform.

There's the dust.

Is it finished?

All that's happened so far is that you've ripped off the...tiles.

I expect something else is going to happen.

Oh, I expected it to be more complete, definitely, yes. I did.

It's just the relief of not having to take three trains to get to Hampstead.

For the renewal of Tottenham Court Road, it's only the end of the beginning.

Above ground, behind the hoardings, the vast new station is just starting to take shape.

David Waboso and Howard Collins are visiting the site.

I could spend all day here. It's so exciting, this place, you know.

I love it.

You can just see the tops of the buses,

but behind that hoarding are people marching up and down Oxford Street.

If you go down five metres, behind that brick-glaze wall there,

are people walking into my ticket hall.

It will be another four years before Tottenham Court Road is finished.

The new station is designed for 200,000 passengers a day.

But even that may not be big enough.

The Tube, in a sense, generates its own traffic.

As soon as you upgrade something, as soon as you put in another

couple of trains per hour, you find that the capacity is taken up.

I mean, we were talking four or five years ago about four million passengers a day in 2016.

Guess what? Last year, back end of 2011, four million passengers a day.

So, we're now thinking five million passengers a day.

And the more you expand, the more people use it.

As soon as you fix this congested point, there's another one

along the line somewhere else to fix, so it's a never-ending task.

What we have to sometimes do is deliver,

I think, sometimes the impossible.

At Victoria Station, at least one part of the upgrade IS finished.

'Ladies and gentlemen, when using the escalator down

'to the Victoria line platform level, can you please stand on the right...'

It makes you think, how did we survive with just two?

When you see all the people coming down. Especially with their bags.

Some days we say to each other, "It's busy today."

It definitely is getting busier. That's why we close them all.

More people are coming.

We're a good team. People who work here know the score, they know how difficult it is.

They'll adapt, cos we always do.

We always do, we always manage it, somehow or another.

Fingers crossed.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd