We are now seeing good progress towards the installation of the first upgraded
‘J Door ‘locks on London Underground, which will take place on the Waterloo and City Line with a target date of the weekend of 25th/26th January, ready for service on Monday 27th January. LU aims to upgrade at least one train per weekend.
The Waterloo and City ‘J Door’ lock will be installed by LU; the other stocks will be installed by an outside contractor using basically the same design of lock with a few tweaks such as a slightly stronger magnet for the lock. At the moment the lock will be fed by the batteries, but this may change to ‘last cab active’. In both cases it means that if you have to shutdown the train, for instance to give your keys to a Station Supervisor while they access the track, you will still be protected by an active J Door lock – this is protection that we insisted was in place.
Briefings are currently being undertaken at Leytonstone for all drivers, prioritising those that drive on the W&C line. Moving forward, when they new lock is installed on other lines I/Op’s will deliver the face to face briefings backed up by an instructional video, with TM’s as a back-up if no I/Op’s are available.
The time delay (the time between the request from the saloon side to open the door and the door lock releasing) on the W&C/Central line is confirmed at four minutes. This time will vary according to the run times between stations on different lines
The current sequence for the J Door lock upgrade is as follows:
92TS Waterloo and City92TS Central72TS Bakerloo95TS Northern73TS PiccadillyS7 DistrictS7 Circle & Hammersmith & City96TS JubileeS8 Metropolitan09 Victoria
In spite of delays LU is still aiming to upgrade all J Door locks by the end of 2020.
ASLEF have led the way on this issue. Your ASLEF Tier 2 Reps will continue to push LU to meet their deadlines ensuring a safe workplace for all our members.