A massive power cut brought parts of the Tube and the Elizabeth line to a standstill after a fire broke out at a substation in west London.
The Northern line, Jubilee line, Bakerloo line and the central section of the Elizabeth line between Paddington and Abbey Wood were all affected by a power cut shortly after 2pm on Monday.
The National Grid told the Standard a “small cable fault” caused a fire at one of its substations at 2.08pm. The electricity operator said that a "consequent voltage dip" may have briefly affected power supplies and apologised to Londoners for the disruption.
Widespread disruption was experienced by commuters in the rush hour, but services gradually returned to normal.
The Bakerloo line was still affected with severed delays after 8pm.
The London Fire Brigade (LFB) confirmed firefighters were called to a fire at an electrical substation in the Cunningham Place and Aberdeen Place area in Maida Vale.
Three metres of high-voltage cabling connected to the substation were destroyed by fire, the LFB said.
Transport for London (TfL) earlier described the incident as a “blip” and said that power had been restored at around 3pm but that it was taking time for services to be restored. It said Tube trains had been moved to platforms to enable passengers to disembark.
TfL’s Chief Operating Officer Claire Mann, apologised to customers and explained that a “brief interruption of the power supply” on the London Underground network led to several Tube lines losing power “for a short period”.
She assured Londoners that TfL was working “to get the whole network up and running again as quickly as possible”.
“We apologise to customers whose journeys will have been affected. We are working to get the whole network up and running again as quickly as possible.”
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Monday’s disruption left passengers trying to get home facing journeys on overcrowded buses and trains, or walking through thunderstorms.
Hundreds of businesses in central London, just south of Oxford Street, are also undersstood to have been affected.
A spokesman for TfL told the PA news agency that there was an outage for “a matter of minutes” and “everything shut down” because of a “National Grid issue”.
He added: “When the power goes out, the trains will have stopped, obviously, there’s emergency power on trains and stations so everything wouldn’t have gone completely black, if you were on there, but the trains would have stopped and we would have cleared some stations because there’s no electricity it might not necessarily be safe for them to be open … some people would have probably been stuck in a tunnel for a little bit of time.”
None of the Overground lines were affected, the spokesman said.
A TfL spokesman also told the Standard that no trains were stuck in tunnels for an unusual amount of time due to the power cut.
TfL officials were seen directing passengers away from stations and recommending alternative routes as large parts of the Tube network were temporarily locked down.
Staff at Paddington were heard describing how “the lights just went off” due to the power outage and were seen turning passengers away from the Elizabeth line.
Elizabeth Line passengers had been allowed back onto the platform at Paddington by around 4.10pm.
The TfL website also appeared to crash on Monday afternoon following the incident.
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Business leaders and politicians quickly called for TfL and the National Grid to investigate the power outage and to ensure the capital’s infrastructure was “more resilient”.
Muniya Barua, Deputy Chief Executive at BusinessLDN, said: “This power cut is causing significant disruption for frustrated commuters, visitors and businesses in central London.
“It’s welcome that power has now been restored but Transport for London and others involved must work quickly to get to the bottom of this outage.
“This needs to be matched with steps to ensure the capital’s infrastructure is more resilient to minimise the risk of similar disruption in future.”
Meanwhile, Keith Prince, City Hall Conservatives Transport Spokesman, called on officials to “make it clear to us what they are going to do to avoid this happening again”.
He said: "Heathrow, Maida Vale, now the Tube. Our creaking infrastructure is sleepwalking towards a blackout event like we saw in Spain that could be chaos for Londoners, and the rest of the country as a result.
“It's only going to get worse as the weather gets warmer. Londoners are paying higher tube fares and what do they get? Graffiti, fare evasion, delayed services and now a Tube service that's not even running.”
A National Grid spokesperson said: “We apologise for any inconvenience following a fault on our transmission network in central London this afternoon.
“The fault was resolved within seconds and did not interrupt supply from our network, but a consequent voltage dip may have briefly affected power supplies on the low voltage distribution network in the area.
“We once again apologise for any inconvenience and ongoing travel disruption.”
