London Underground Acton Depot – Warehouse Storage Solutions

Background

London Underground Acton Depot – C.L.I.P. Project (Central Line Improvement Programme)

The 1992 stock trains are one of the least reliable fleets on the London Underground network, and LU says almost £8 million per year is spent repairing and overhauling the trains’ motors and containing the frequency of motor damage to below 200 per year. With replacement under the Deep Tube Upgrade Programme (DTUP) not planned until the early 2030s, LU has therefore initiated the Central Line Improvement Programme (CLIP) to improve the fleet’s overall reliability and provide an improved passenger experience, as well as to meet current accessibility requirements.

The 1992 stock fleet was the last procured by LU to use direct current (DC) motors and the first to use electronic rather than electro-mechanical control systems. The aim of the upgrade is to reduce customer-affecting failures attributed to the Central Line fleet by 14% and to eliminate a quarter of cancellations due to trains being unavailable.

Other benefits include lower fleet maintenance costs, reduced energy consumption, which should in turn reduce peak tunnel temperatures, and improved acceleration of heavily-loaded trains.

In 2021 TFL completed the build of a new Maintenance Shed at the Acton Depot (AC14), where the old trains will be refurbished as part of the CLIP Project.

The Challenge

As the main supplier of storage solutions for TFL, STS were contacted back in 2019 to start to look at some designs for existing areas and warehouses on the Acton site that could accommodate the extra parts needed to be stored on site for the CLIP Project. 

We initially looked at upgrading the pallet racking in one depot, then another depot released some space in the Despatch Warehouse for new pallet racking to house the variety of pallets and stillages that needed to be stored at Acton.

The order was finally placed with STS in May 2022 and installation commenced in October 2022.

The Solution

Standard 1000kgs pallets:

• To provide heavy duty Pallet Racking with timber decking for standard Euro and UK Pallets.

Large Converter pallets (4500mm wide x 2400mm deep – weighing 1800kgs each):

• Heavy Duty Cantilever Racking with 2500mm arms, designed to accommodate 24 pallets stored.

How We Achieved IT