Tube strike February 2017: 'Severe delays' on multiple lines during last few hours of walk-out

There were severe delays across London’s tube network on Wednesday evening as the capital struggled through the last few hours of a crippling drivers’ strike.

The Central, Circle, District, Hammersmith & City, Metropolitan and Piccadilly lines were all suffering from “severe delays” due to an “absence of control staff”.

There was no service at all on the Central line east of Leytonstone, and on the Waterloo and City line, due to the planned drivers’ walk-out.

The RMT and Aslef strike was over the “forced” transfer of eight drivers from their home depot at Leytonstone to others further afield, mainly Earl’s Court.

Circle line delays were related to a security incident at Moorgate station during the afternoon.

More than one million Londoners endured travel misery on Wednesday as the capital was also hit by a Southern Rail strike.

Southern Rail mainline services, carrying 300,000 plus passengers a day, suffered cancellations and delays because of a 24-hour walkout – the 29th strike – by train guards in the long running dispute over driver-only operation (DOO.)

A Transport for London spokesman told the Standard that services would be “back to normal” across the network from the start of Thursday morning.

Peter McNaught, Operations Director for the Central line, had apologised for the “unnecessary” strikes and said: “We have made all reasonable efforts to resolve this dispute through talking through the issues with the unions, and we have minimised the number of employees affected from over 30 to eight.

“All of these moves are within the long-standing agreements we have made with the unions.”

But the unions are insisting that London Underground were pushing through the changes without prior agreement.

An RMT spokesman said: “LU has made absolutely no effort at all to allocate drivers to their home depot.

"That is the point of the argument – they are just pushing people across the network without agreement.”