The District line to Wimbledon will be shut for two weekends next month, after being shut for two this month. TfL has still not released its records of delays on the line for this year or last, and one group of passengers has had enough.
Fix The District will protest outside Wimbledon station this afternoon from 4pm to 7pm. The volunteer campaign is calling on the Government to fund modern signalling for the branch.
TfL has refused since March to release its District line delay records for any period after February 2025. It first said the data would be published “in the summer”, and in June said it would appear “in the coming months”. The reason is to prevent embarrassing headlines over the line’s highly public failure during Wimbledon weekend. We have referred the refusal to the Information Commissioner.
Without TfL’s figures, the campaign keeps its own. Its passenger log has recorded 313 delays and disruptions on the branch since February, 36 of them this month. Of the 234 reports that timed a delay, 110 were made while TfL’s status feed showed a Good Service. The campaign estimates the delays have cost passengers more than half a million hours.
The new signalling TfL is due to switch on this year will stop at East Putney. In a Freedom of Information response in April, TfL said its modernisation programme “is replacing the signalling system as far as East Putney station”. Southfields, Wimbledon Park and Wimbledon will get better platform information instead.
TfL’s notices give the reason for the weekend closures only as planned engineering work. We have put seven questions to TfL, including whether the closures are for the new signalling, whether that signalling is working yet, and when it will publish its delay records. TfL had not responded by the time of publication.
The branch closes on 10 and 11 October and again on 24 and 25 October, according to TfL’s published list. Parsons Green to Wimbledon is also due to close for a weekend in February and another in March next year.
Earlier this month, TfL reported severe delays between Earl’s Court and Wimbledon while it fixed a signal failure at Wimbledon Park. Passengers were told their tickets would be accepted on buses and South Western Railway.
Left out in 2020
TfL decided in 2020 that the District line’s western branches would not be re-signalled. It restated the decision in 2021 and 2024.
TfL spent £500,000 on the branch before this year’s Championships and told passengers it was ready. It failed three times in the weeks that followed.
A link sending fault information from Network Rail’s Wimbledon signalling centre to London Underground’s control room was once promised for early 2026. It is now due to go live with the new signals to East Putney.
Campaign spokesperson Max Barber has asked TfL, under Freedom of Information rules, how much it saved by leaving the branch out. TfL has said it will reply by 9 October.
The campaign’s petition calls for “full modern signalling between East Putney and Wimbledon” and a funded timetable. It had 1,471 signatures this morning. The protest was announced in August.
How to take part Thursday 17 September, 4pm to 7pm, Wimbledon station forecourt, The Broadway, SW19 7NL. Busiest from 5pm to 6.30pm; group photograph at 6pm. Placards provided and children welcome. The petition and the campaign’s delay log are at fixthedistrict.org.
