Circle Line suspension caused by 1980's computers

If you were one of the people delayed by yesterday's Circle Line closure put it down to 1980's computer "burn out". A London Underground spokeperson blamed "antiquated assets" for the most of the line being suspended throughout the day. An IT error led to the signal problems, although this morning's signal failures were unrelated to "Back to the Future" style computers.


TfL told IT Pro "Our engineers worked through the night to repair the problems which caused yesterday's suspension but a new problem developed this morning.

"The bottom line is that it's exactly these kind of antiquated assets that we're seeking to replace with the upgrade programme we’re carrying out at the moment."

In January it was announced that SAP-based TfL is preparing to sign an extensive range of framework agreements, totalling a potential £70 million and covering IT services. I'm not techie enough to know how much of this will be signal related, but hopefully with a 70 million quid investment we might be lucky for the lines to see some computers that were made this century.