London Underground 2005 Stock - Introduction Into Service

Introduction Into Service

The design of the trains was finalised in September 2004. Manufacture of two pre-production trains began in January 2005, the first scheduled to be completed by mid-2006. On 3 February 2006, Metronet announced that the first of the pre-production cars had been completed in preparation for static testing. From 21 July to 4 August 2006, a mock-up of the train was on show at Euston Square Gardens, near Euston Square tube station, for a customer acceptance test followed by public display.

From September 2006, the first pre-production train underwent testing at Bombardier's manufacturing and test site at its Litchurch Lane Works in Derby. It was due to be delivered to London Underground by the end of 2006 for testing on the Victoria line during engineering hours but this did not occur until May 2007. It was also used for driver and maintenance training and familiarisation.

The second pre-production train was also tested on the Victoria line during engineering hours, and was expected to begin trial running in full passenger service in July 2008. However, this date slipped twice, first to January 2009 and then to July 2009. The train finally entered service on 21 July 2009, leaving Northumberland Park depot at 23:00 and forming the 23:55 service between Seven Sisters and Brixton.

Main production commenced at the end of 2009, with one train entering passenger service every two weeks from February 2010. By mid-2011, there was a sufficient number of trains in service to allow the withdrawal of the few remaining 1967 Stock trains, the last of which ran on 30 June 2011.