Week begins with commuter travel chaos with delays on four major Tube lines
A signal failure at Whitechapel has caused severe delays
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The week has begun with commuter travel chaos on four major Tube lines ahead of London Underground strikes later this week.
Tube passengers on the Circle, District and Elizabeth lines have encountered the most problems with their journeys.
On the Circle Line, there are severe delays due to an earlier points failure at Whitechapel.
Transport for London (TfL) also reported severe delays on the District Line between Earl’s Court and Wimbledon / Richmond / Ealing Broadway and between Earl’s Court and Tower Hill eastbound due to the earlier points failure.
Read more: When are the November tube strikes? Two days of action to still take place despite RMT breakthrough
There is currently no service between Stratford and Shenfield on the Elizabeth Line, with severe delays between Whitechapel and Stratford while “emergency services deal with a casualty on the track”.
There is “good service” on the rest of the Elizabeth Line, say TfL.
As for the commuter line between Waterloo and Bank, minor delays may disrupt journeys this morning as TfL fix “equipment damaged by vandalism” on the Waterloo and City line.
Strikes planned by London Underground staff in the RMT were suspended on Friday, the union announced.
Workers had been due to walk out on Friday evening and across several dates over the coming weeks in a dispute over pay, sparking fears of severe disruption on the network.
Although the RMT have called off their industrial action, planned strikes from the train drivers’ union Aslef are scheduled to go ahead.
Accordingly, problems for rail passengers are expected to persist on Thursday (7 October) and next Tuesday (12 October).
A TfL spokesperson said: “We apologise to District and Circle line customers for the disruption to their journeys this morning which was caused by a points failure at Whitechapel. Engineers are working as quickly as possible to restore a normal service. Services on the Waterloo & City line are also experiencing some disruption this morning due to one train being taken out of service for repair.”
When are the London Underground strikes?
7 November: No Tube services expected.
12 November: Severe disruption on the Tube, with little to no service expected. Any services that run are expected to start late and finish early.
For more travel news and advice, listen to Simon Calder’s podcast
