Bob Crow warns royal wedding will be 'travel lottery' as chaos hits Tube

Dick Murray12 April 2012

Tube passengers suffered massive disruption today - just 24-hour before the network is used by tens of thousands of visitors for the royal wedding.

Four lines - the Northern, Circle, District and Hammersmith & City - were all suspended for part of the morning because of signal failures.

It followed yet more chaos last night on the Jubilee line due to a failed train at Stratford.
Passengers complained on Twitter they waited for more than an hour between trains.

Services later resumed on the four lines today but with severe delays.

Bob Crow, the RMT leader, said getting around London tomorrow for the Royal Wedding will be a "travel lottery."

He said: "In the past twelve hours five major tube lines serving the centre of the City have been closed through a variety of infrastructure failures as the tube crawls towards the end of another week of cuts-inflicted chaos.

"Against this background it will be travel lottery in the Capital tomorrow as hundreds of thousands of extra passengers cram into a system that is already struggling to cope as the Mayor unleashes another £7.6 billion of cuts."

The Northern line was suspended early today between Kennington and Morden due to a broken down train at South Wimbledon.

Then a signal failure at Edgware Road crippled the Circle, District and Hammersmith & City lines.

Jubilee line services are suffering repeated delays because of problems with a new £80 million signalling system.

There are mounting fears the line, one of the principal routes for the Olympic Games serving Stratford Stadium, won't be ready in time.

Peter Hendy, London's Transport Commissioner, has pledged "all Tube lines" will be running for the wedding.

He said: "There is a real sense of excitement surrounding the royal wedding, and a great many people will be coming to central London to be a part of the various celebrations taking place.

"We are working with our partners to ensure that everyone can get around safely and easily, and that people not involved with the celebrations can continue to move around the city with the minimum of disruption.

"All Tube lines will be running and our bus and streets teams will be working flat-out to make sure that the closures and diversions needed are managed smoothly. The whole of TfL is focussed on helping to ensure that a great day is had by all."

A Transport for London spokeswoman said: "The Circle, District and Hammersmith & City lines were part suspended due to a signal failure at Edgware Road at 08.53.

"London Underground engineers worked hard to resolve the problem as quickly as possible and services resumed at 09.40. We apologise to customers for any disruption this may have caused to their journeys this morning."

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