Transport for London (TfL) has appointed two subsidiaries of German state railway company Deutsche Bahn (DB) to provide Quality Assurance for London Underground’s new Piccadilly line trains.

DB ESG is a rolling stock engineering company and will be supported in its work on the fleet by DB
Systemtechnik (DB ST), which has a dedicated team of rolling stock inspectors.

Together, the two DB organisations will provide independent quality assurance services while the trains are being designed, built and tested.

Siemens Mobility is building the trains as part of the Piccadilly Line Upgrade programme. Siemens will build the majority of the trains in Yorkshire.

Although Siemens delivered the first of the new trains about a year ago, testing revealed some problems and the introduction of the fleet into service was pushed back to the latter half of next year. Once completed, there will be 94 trains in the new Piccadilly line fleet.

The Piccadilly line runs from Heathrow Airport and Uxbridge in the west of London to Cockfosters in the north-east of the capital, serving 53 stations. The current rolling stock dates back to the 1970s.

DB ESG, which was founded in 1995, will conduct surveillance activities during the manufacturing process, with the aim of confirming that all processes and deliverables achieve the quality standards that TfL requires and that have been agreed with the suppliers.

As it takes up its new role as the appointed Quality Assurance Service Provider, DB ESG will take responsibility for observing, supervising and verifying key processes in the manufacture, testing and inspection of the vehicles across the various stages of the project.

It will carry out Independent quality checks in order to identify any defects or deviations early in the process.

This will allow timely corrective action to be carried out, which will help avoid further delays and cost overruns.

“Having local teams available in both the UK and the EU offers significant benefits in terms of availability, local language skills and in-depth knowledge of facilities and processes. This greatly supports a robust and efficient approach to this project.”

Nick Goodhand, Managing Director at DB ESG