Thousands of commuters were stranded at Tube stations the length of both the Jubilee and Metropolitan Lines, in the midst of the morning rush hour today as Tube Lines maintenance teams struggled to replace a cracked rail.
A Transport for London (TfL) spokesman said: “This is the worst engineering overrun ever. We are absolutely furious that they undertook this work and failed to complete in time. This was a complex job that should have been done over weekend. By bringing the work forward Tube Lines has incurred far greater costs than they hoped to save on penalty charges for lost customer hours and created sheer chaos.” The spokesman declined to say how much Tube Lines would be fined. However a LUL source estimated it as “North of £250,000”.
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Howard Collins Chief Operating Officer of London Underground said LUL was” extremely frustrated by this unacceptable performance by Tube Lines”.
However a Tube Lines spokeswoman said the work was brought forward for safety reasons.: “The work was safety critical. There was a real risk to leaving the repair work until the weekend. Our stance was vindicated when it was inspected last night. However technical difficulties arose. One rail could not be aligned with the crossing point and we had to take out the rail, replace the chair that the crossing point was sitting in and then realign the rail. Services were resumed by 9.30am."
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