London Assembly Unanimously Demands Urgent Replacement of Bakerloo Line's Ageing 1972 Fleet

On 6 November 2026, the London Assembly unanimously passed a motion calling on Mayor Sadiq Khan to urgently secure funding to replace the Bakerloo line's rolling stock — the oldest passenger train fleet in the UK, dating from 1972 and now nearly 20 years beyond its original design life. The line recorded the worst performance figures of any Tube line in 2025–26, and the decline has continued: in 2026–27 so far, only around 88% of scheduled kilometres have actually been completed, down from around 97% in the period 2016–19, meaning roughly one in eight timetabled services has not run. Frequency has also been quietly reduced, falling from 20 trains per hour to 18 per hour in spring 2026 without any public announcement. The line carries 87 million passengers a year. Assembly member Neil Garratt, who proposed the motion, warned that "the Bakerloo Line is crumbling, and this puts Londoners at risk of greater and greater delays." The motion calls on the Mayor to confirm whether Bakerloo trains have been added to an existing Siemens rolling stock contract, to press the Government for funding, and to require TfL to report performance data against the original 2016 timetable rather than the reduced current schedule.