In four weeks time a third line joins the Night Tube. We can already ride the Central and Victoria lines through the early hours of Saturday and Sunday mornings, and from 8th October the Jubilee line joins the fray. Trains will run the entire length of the line between Stanmore and Stratford, making getting home from the O2 or getting to your cleaning job in Neasden that bit easier.
Here's why this will be useful.
Last Jubilee line tube
from GREEN PARK
to Stanmore
to Stratford
Friday night
0034
0045
Saturday night
0034
0045
At the moment, if you're not down on the Jubilee line platforms at Green Park soon after half past midnight, it's the nightbus or a taxi home for you.
First Jubilee line tube
from GREEN PARK
to Stanmore
to Stratford
Saturday morning
0538
0526
Sunday morning
0737
0727
As for Green Park's first train of the morning, this currently runs around half past five on a Saturday, but as late as half past seven on a Sunday, because first thing Sunday morning has always been the Tube's quietest time.
The Night Tube will be filling in these gaps, that's an extra five hours of service on a Saturday morning and an extra seven hours on a Sunday. Whenever your gig finishes, your clubbing's over or your zero hours contract starts, the Jubilee line will be waiting to take you away.
As on the two existing Night Tube lines there'll be a train along every ten minutes, all of them operated by specially-recruited part-time drivers.
What's more, because the new service is only four weeks away, all the times have now been entered into the TfL Journey Planner, in case you fancy planning your first overnight jaunt in advance. And this means it's possible to interrogate the database and deduce the timetable, which is what I did before the Central and Victoria lines launched in August.
Better still, TfL have already updated their Working Timetables page to show the new timetable that'll be running on the Jubilee line from the end of the month. So here's how the Night Tube will be filling the gap on a Saturday morning, beginning on Saturday 8th October.
Night Tube timetable - Jubilee line(westbound)
Stratford
0015
0025
0035
0045
0055
0105
and
every
10
mins
until
0455
0504
North Greenwich
0022
0032
0042
0052
0102
0112
0502
0512
London Bridge
0031
0041
0051
0101
0111
0121
0511
0520
Green Park
0038
0048
0058
0108
0118
0128
0518
0527
Finchley Road
0048
0058
0108
0118
0128
0138
0528
0537
Wembley Park
0100
0110
0120
0130
0140
0150
0540
0549
Stanmore
0110
0120
0130
0140
0150
0200
0550
0559
Don't worry, the trains will be stopping at every station, I've simply shown a selection of stations to keep this manageable. But there it is in black and white - trains every ten minutes to fill the current overnight gap.
Night Tube timetable - Jubilee line(eastbound)
Stanmore
0024
0034
0044
0054
0104
and
every
10
mins
until
0434
0444
Wembley Park
0031
0037
0044
0054
0104
0114
0444
0454
Finchley Road
0042
0049
0056
0106
0116
0126
0456
0506
Green Park
0052
0058
0106
0116
0126
0136
0506
0516
London Bridge
0059
0105
0113
0123
0133
0143
0513
0523
North Greenwich
0108
0115
0122
0132
0142
0152
0522
0532
Stratford
0117
0123
0130
0140
0150
0200
0530
0540
Eastbound trains take a little while to slip into a pattern, running slightly more frequently as the Night Tube service kicks in. But then it's every ten minutes all the way through to half past five, just like on the westbound.
Looking further ahead, it's known that TfL are keen to have the two remaining Night Tube lines up and running before Christmas, but it's not yet been announced whether the Northern line or Piccadilly line will be next, or whether both will start simultaneously.
We're also going to need several new Night Tube maps - one when the Jubilee line is added, another when the fourth line goes live, and eventually the full map with all five lines as planned. 2016 might just be The Year With The Most Tube Maps Ever, not that you'll necessarily be able to find a paper copy at your local station - thus far the Night Tube map print run appears to have been negligibly small.
I can also now confirm the date of the first weekend engineering works to disrupt the service on a Night Tube line. The Jubilee line will be suspended between Stanmore and Waterloo on Saturday 21st January and Sunday 22nd January, and across the subsequent weekend too. If you were planning an overnighter in Dollis Hill at the end of January 2017, forget it. But no engineering works are planned on any of the five Night Tube lines at any other time over the next six months, so you can start planning your New Year social life with confidence right away.
