Passenger uproar as Jubilee line misery ‘will last all year’

Passengers on the Jubilee line face dozens more weekend closures after transport bosses admitted upgrade work is unlikely to finish by Christmas.

Transport for London insiders said they have had the chance to "look under the bonnet" of the system after acquiring private maintenance firm Tube Lines at the end of last month for £310 million, and the situation is "as bad as we had feared".

A new report, being discussed at a meeting of the TfL board today, reveals engineering work has hit major problems. Instead of being completed by October as originally planned, it is now expected to stretch on, perhaps into the new year.

Commuters have already endured up to 146 closures on the line.

TfL hopes that from the autumn, any closures affecting central London and the east end of the line to Stratford will be kept to a minimum. But "significant" closures will be required on the north-west end to Stanmore. More than one in six trains have been cancelled because of the shutdowns.

TfL has taken over full control of the line, effectively bringing an end to the public-private partnership set up by Gordon Brown.

There are understood to be problems at a depot in Stratford and at the line's Neasden control centre, as well as with train and system reliability. A new signalling system is facing serious software problems.