Nightmare on the Tube

More than 100,000 Tube commuters were left stranded today as one of the busiest lines was plunged into chaos.

The Central line was shut between White City and Holborn throughout the morning peak period after overnight engineering works ran hours behind schedule.

The disruption was compounded by a signal failure on the Northern line at Angel.

Central line services did not begin running through central London until 8am and there were knock-on delays throughout the morning. It is the second successive day that night engineering work has failed to finish on time. Yesterday commuters suffered long delays when the Circle, District and Hammersmith & City lines failed to open on schedule.

Today's problems were at Oxford Circus station where engineers were working on the track. They are thought to have had too few bolts, or the incorrect size of bolts, required to fix new track.

The Central, District and Circle lines are the responsibility of Metronet, the private sector consortium responsible for maintenance of two thirds of the network for the next 30 years.

Tube chiefs and Mayor Ken Livingstone are now demanding a full explanation from Metronet of what went wrong.

A London Underground spokesman said: " We have demanded to know exactly what went wrong and why. We have been far from impressed with Metronet's performance this week.

"Today's problems on the Central line follow yesterday's delays on the District and Circle line, all of which is the responsibility of Metronet." A spokesman for Metronet would only say that a number of "technical issues" resulted in work running behind schedule.

"A full investigation is taking place and we don't yet have the result of that," he said.

Work replacing the track was sub-contracted to rail engineering giant Balfour Beatty.

Disruption on the Northern line today, the responsibility of the Tube Lines consortium, was also for the second day running.

There were delays on the line yesterday caused by staff failing to turn up and a signal failure at South Wimbledon.

The continuing failures by Metronet and Tube Lines come despite combined profits of £93 million during the first year of the part-privatisation of the Tube.

They have contracts to maintain the network for the next 30 years.