Mayor blasts Tube chiefs over the 'week from hell'

The Mayor read the riot act to Tube bosses in face-to-face meetings after what commuters described as a "hellish week".

Boris Johnson ordered the capital's transport commissioner Peter Hendy and London Underground managing director Mike Brown to "pull their socks up" and start providing a decent service.

He was said to be "fuming with exasperation" after receiving a succession of reports about train breakdowns and stranded travellers being led to safety.

Hundreds of thousands of passengers suffered major disruption — with thousands being forced to walk along tracks in pitch-black tunnels.

Following orders by the Mayor, a report on the week of failures was this afternoon "winging its way" from Tube HQ to his City Hall desk. He will focus in particular on what Tube chiefs propose to prevent it happening again.

His transport adviser Kulveer Ranger said: "Londoners have every right to feel hugely aggravated by the disruption we saw on the Tube this week."

Passengers suffered again today. The Waterloo and City line, dubbed The Drain, was suspended following flooding at Waterloo. Delays affected Bakerloo and Metropolitan services. Jubilee line users — among the worst-hit this week — face more misery because drivers refuse to use a new £600 million signalling system on safety grounds.

Steve Grant, London organiser for drivers' union Aslef, said: "We don't have faith in it, particularly after everything this week." That could cause further delays to the Jubilee line upgrade — designed to run more and faster trains but already a year late. RMT leader Bob Crow said: "Privatisation has delivered us an operational system on the Jubilee line which doesn't operate.

"It has cost taxpayers billions and caused routine misery for passengers. This is a shocking indictment of mismanagement at the very top of TfL."

Howard Collins, LU's chief operating officer, denied "systemic failures" are to blame for the worst services in a decade. He said the Tube had been hit by "unrelated problems this week".