Tens of thousands of London commuters and visitors experienced travel chaos after much of the capital’s transport network shut down on Monday.
The disruption was caused by a cable fault which led to a fire at an electrical substation in the Cunningham Place and Aberdeen Place area in Maida Vale, a London Fire Brigade (LFB) spokesperson said.
The Transport for London (TfL) website on Monday afternoon showed the entire Bakerloo and Suffragette lines were suspended, while there were severe delays and part suspensions on the Elizabeth line and the Jubilee and Northern lines.
The Bakerloo line, linking Elephant & Castle with northwest London, was completely suspended.
The Suffragette and Weaver Overground lines are completely suspended, and the Mildmay line was partially suspended with major delays.
The Northern line had no service on the Charing Cross branch connecting London Euston via Leicester Square and Waterloo with Kennington, nor south of Stockwell.
Firefighters were called to the substation in Maida Vale, west London, and three metres of high voltage cabling were destroyed, it is understood.
It comes weeks after a fire at the same substation, which saw elderly and vulnerable residents among those moved out of their homes.
However, Monday’s fire is understood to have involved different equipment to the blaze on 29 April.
Claire Mann, TfL’s Chief Operating Officer, said: “Due to a brief interruption of the power supply to our network, several lines lost power for a short period earlier this afternoon.
“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.”
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.”
