TfL Tube delays leaves furious commuters stuck underground for an hour amid travel chaos

Commuters were stuck underground for over an hour during Monday's morning rush hour after a major power failure crippled three Tube lines.

Tube trains on the Circle, District and Piccadilly lines ground to a halt in tunnels between stations following the signal system shutdown at Earl’s Court station.

Josh Phillips, who was travelling to work at Warner Music in Kensington, told the Standard his westbound Circle line train was stranded underground for an hour just before Victoria station.

“The driver was doing his best but you could tell he didn't really know what was happening,” Mr Phillips said.

“He kept saying he was trying to get hold of someone but he couldn't and that every single train was stuck on a red signal.”

Mr Phillips said it was “pretty chaotic on board” and added: “Babies crying, people getting really angry.”

The train eventually started moving again and arrived at Victoria station but above ground “the buses were really crazy”, Mr Phillips said.

He added: “I walked through Hyde Park to get to Kensington. Only two hours late.”

Luke Francis was trapped on a stationary Circle line train between High Street Kensington and Gloucester Road for 45 minutes and described how people were sitting on the floor.

Other passengers complained of the “shocking service” and moaned of the “delightful start to a Monday”.

Heather Bonney, who was stuck on a Piccadilly line train, said: “We’ve been stuck on a train outside Ealing Common for almost an hour – PLEASE can we get detrained, it’s sweltering in here.”

Another passenger, called Jocelyn-Jane Taylor, said she was stuck on a non-moving District line train outside of Parson’s Green for more than an hour.

Transport for London apologised for the delays and said their engineers were working “as fast as they can” to get the problem sorted.

The Piccadilly and District lines were initially suspended but by 10.30pm the lines were operating with severe delays. The Circle line remained part suspended.

A spokesman for TfL said it was not yet known how long the problems will last for. He said workers were in the process of switching power from a local supplier to a London Underground power supply.

Steve White, operations director for London Underground, promised automatic refunds for passengers. He said: “We are very sorry for the disruption caused to customers this morning which was due to a power network failure in the Earl’s Court area at around 9.30am.

"Our engineers worked hard to get services running normally as quickly as possible by using our backup power supply.

"We will be automatically refunding any customers affected by the disruption by the end of the week. Customers who have not received a refund by this time should contact TfL via the website or our customer services department.”