Monday morning Tube chaos hits commuters with severe delays

Dick Murray12 April 2012

Hundreds of thousands of Tube commuters suffered yet another Black Monday with four busy lines crippled or part suspended during the morning peak.

A major signal failure at Aldgate just as the peak period was building suspended parts on the Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines together used by more than 650,000 passengers a day.

The entire outer Circle line was suspended clockwise - Embankment to Charing Cross direction; there were no trains on the Hammersmith & City between Moorgate and Barking and the Metropolitan line was halted between Baker Street and Aldgate.

There were severe delays on the Piccadilly line due to a broken down train at Park Royal.

Other lines were even more crowded than usual as commuters stuggled to find other ways to get into work.

The chaos followed a major weekend shutdown across most of the Tube network for engineering work.

Only the Bakerloo, Central, and Northern lines offered a good service with the rest part suspended.

Bob Crow, the RMT leader, condemned todays chaos saying it is a direct result of spending cuts.

He said: "Passengers were confronted with yet another Monday morning of Tube chaos as once again the combination of cuts and creaking infrastructure brings the system to its knees."

As the morning peak progressed trains started running again on the Circle and Metropolitan lines but with severe delays.

In total this morning five lines suffered disruption for a variety of causes; signal failure, train failure and two passengers taken ill which delayed trains.

A spokesman for Transport for London said "a good service" was operating on the "majority" of lines.

He said signal problems which caused the part suspension of the City, Hammersmith and City and Metropolitan Lines were dealt with quickly.

Central Line services were delayed because of two passengers taken ill separately, one requiring resuscitation on the platform. The Piccadilly Line disruption which caused suspension of the route briefly this morning was caused by a broken down engineers train.

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