{"id":863224,"date":"2025-07-18T00:13:38","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T05:13:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/18\/tube-trains-and-hundreds-of-businesses-hit-by-massive-power-failure-in-central-london\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T00:13:38","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T05:13:38","slug":"tube-trains-and-hundreds-of-businesses-hit-by-massive-power-failure-in-central-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/18\/tube-trains-and-hundreds-of-businesses-hit-by-massive-power-failure-in-central-london\/","title":{"rendered":"Tube, trains and hundreds of businesses hit by massive power failure in central London"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

\"WEST<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

A massive power cut<\/a> brought parts of the Tube and the Elizabeth line to a standstill after a fire broke out at a substation in west London.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The Northern line<\/a>, Jubilee line<\/a>, Bakerloo line and the central section of the Elizabeth line between Paddington and Abbey Wood were all affected by a power cut shortly after 2pm on Monday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The National Grid told the Standard a \u201csmall cable fault\u201d caused a fire at one of its substations at 2.08pm. The electricity operator said that a “consequent voltage dip” may have briefly affected power supplies and apologised to Londoners for the disruption.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Widespread disruption was experienced by commuters in the rush hour, but services gradually returned to normal. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The Bakerloo line was still affected with severed delays after 8pm.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/picture>\n

The aftermath of the cable fire in Maida Vale<\/p>\n

LFB<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The London Fire Brigade (LFB) confirmed firefighters were called to a fire at an electrical substation in the Cunningham Place and Aberdeen Place area in Maida Vale. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Three metres of high-voltage cabling connected to the substation were destroyed by fire, the LFB said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Transport for London<\/a> (TfL) earlier described the incident as a \u201cblip\u201d and said that power had been restored at around 3pm but that it was taking time for services to be restored. It said Tube trains had been moved to platforms to enable passengers to disembark.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

TfL\u2019s Chief Operating Officer Claire Mann, apologised to customers and explained that a \u201cbrief interruption of the power supply\u201d on the London Underground network led to several Tube lines losing power \u201cfor a short period\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

She assured Londoners that TfL was working \u201cto get the whole network up and running again as quickly as possible\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/picture>\n

Trains stopped running on the Tube during a power outage on Monday<\/p>\n

Chris Gorman<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Monday\u2019s disruption left passengers trying to get home facing journeys on overcrowded buses and trains, or walking through thunderstorms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Read More<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
\n

Hundreds of businesses in central London, just south of Oxford Street, are also undersstood to have been affected.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/picture>\n

TfL status update: several lines out of action<\/p>\n

TfL<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

A spokesman for TfL told the PA news agency that there was an outage for \u201ca matter of minutes\u201d and \u201ceverything shut down\u201d because of a \u201cNational Grid issue\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

He added: \u201cWhen the power goes out, the trains will have stopped, obviously, there\u2019s emergency power on trains and stations so everything wouldn\u2019t have gone completely black, if you were on there, but the trains would have stopped and we would have cleared some stations because there\u2019s no electricity it might not necessarily be safe for them to be open \u2026 some people would have probably been stuck in a tunnel for a little bit of time.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

None of the Overground lines were affected, the spokesman said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

A TfL spokesman also told the Standard that no trains were stuck in tunnels for an unusual amount of time due to the power cut.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

TfL officials were seen directing passengers away from stations and recommending alternative routes as large parts of the Tube network were temporarily locked down.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Staff at Paddington were heard describing how \u201cthe lights just went off\u201d due to the power outage and were seen turning passengers away from the Elizabeth line.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Elizabeth Line passengers had been allowed back onto the platform at Paddington by around 4.10pm.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The TfL website also appeared to crash on Monday afternoon following the incident.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/picture>\n

Passengers were greeted by closed doors at Waterloo station following the power cut<\/p>\n

Chris Gorman<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Business leaders and politicians quickly called for TfL and the National Grid to investigate the power outage and to ensure the capital\u2019s infrastructure was \u201cmore resilient\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Muniya Barua, Deputy Chief Executive at BusinessLDN, said: \u201cThis power cut is causing significant disruption for frustrated commuters, visitors and businesses in central London. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cIt\u2019s welcome that power has now been restored but Transport for London and others involved must work quickly to get to the bottom of this outage. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cThis needs to be matched with steps to ensure the capital\u2019s infrastructure is more resilient to minimise the risk of similar disruption in future.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Meanwhile, Keith Prince, City Hall Conservatives Transport Spokesman, called on officials to \u201cmake it clear to us what they are going to do to avoid this happening again\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

He said: “Heathrow, Maida Vale, now the Tube. Our creaking infrastructure is sleepwalking towards a blackout event like we saw in Spain that could be chaos for Londoners, and the rest of the country as a result.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cIt’s only going to get worse as the weather gets warmer. Londoners are paying higher tube fares and what do they get? Graffiti, fare evasion, delayed services and now a Tube service that’s not even running.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

A National Grid spokesperson said: \u201cWe apologise for any inconvenience following a fault on our transmission network in central London this afternoon.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cThe 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cWe once again apologise for any inconvenience and ongoing travel disruption.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Ross Lydall,Noah Vickers and Jacob Phillips
Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A massive power cut brought parts of the Tube and the Elizabeth line to a standstill after a fire broke out at a substation in west London. The Northern line, Jubilee line, Bakerloo line and the central section of the Elizabeth line between Paddington and Abbey Wood were all affected by a power cut shortly<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":863225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[967,33286],"tags":[8889,91879],"class_list":{"0":"post-863224","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hundreds","8":"category-trains","9":"tag-hundreds","10":"tag-trains"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=863224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/863225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=863224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=863224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=863224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}