Problem tonight

[melikepie]

I was coming back from London tonight. At Holborn it showed there were minor delays to Arnos Grove and Severe delays between Arnos Grove and Cockfosters. However, no explanation was given. Despite it also saying it was minor delays, the trains were severely delayed between Arsenal and Arnos Grove. All the driver could do was apologise and say it was going to be a slow journey but gave no explanation why.

Once I got to Arnos Grove, there was no explanation for the hold up. After waiting quite a while in the platform, I decided to risk it and see if I could get a bus but it turned out I'd just missed one and there wasn't going to be another for half an hour. By this time, going back into the station, my original train had left and from others I had learnt that services had been suspended previously with not much explanation. I learnt from a guard that Southgate was closed due a fire alert and had just reopened.

Trains running north from Arnos Grove were running a good service but again no explanations were given. What would have only taken 35 mins took around an hour and a half. Can someone explain what went wrong here?

[Deleted]

Currently (I can't tell you why this information wasn't available before; nor can I 100% confirm this information is correct), the TfL website shows that the Piccadilly line is disrupted because of multiple signal failures (probably because of the heat) - one at South Harrow and one at Acton Town. Depending on when you were travelling, one or both of these might have been the reason for your problems.

[melikepie]

I was on the tube from say 9:50pm. I also wonder what the suspension\severe delays of services was caused by north of Arnos Grove

[Deleted]

Well, if the earlier signal failures are entirely to blame, there's no real reason to be surprised that services are suffering north of Arnos Grove - a major turnback point. It's the knock on effect. You've gotta think that, in general, TfL will be doing all they can to keep up the services to Heathrow, by and large to the detriment of anything and everything that can be sacrificed.

[Colin]

Better explained as service recovery. You cannot recover the service back to time if you run everything to the end of the line.

The Acton failure was on the Eastbound and the only way to get trains through the area was to push everything through "the local" platform 4 (ie, the platform that the District's use).

At the same time this failure occured, Richmond also went down and I was one of those diverted to Ealing (was at West Ken when we lost Richmond). By the time I got to Ealing Common westbound, well it was like a magical merry go round with blocking back from Acton Town to Ealing Broadway........all three Ealing Broadway platforms occupied and three of us queueing on the west to get in!

Meanwhile you have all of the Picc service plus the District's all trying to get through the one platform going East. It was carnage. Believe me, Heathrow wasn't prioritised at all - punching more trains there would simply add to the problem at Acton when they come back!

[Deleted]

I see, thanks for all the information from the trenches!

[Deleted]

Point failure at Acton last night not related to heat and the system failure at South Harrow which was caused by excessive heat did screw it up yesterday for the Picc

[Alight]

I know that on Tuesday evening Southgate station was closed due to a power failure. This led to the majority of us having to exit Arnos Grove to catch a connecting bus, which was jam packed! The service itself, however, was fine. This was all around 6.15pm

[Deleted]

South Harrow was late afternoon and Acton was right near the end

[tubelightonline]

Clearly, the South Harrow incident was the Tube equivalent of the legendary 'Pharaoh's Curse'; disturbing the '83s that were stored there released some sort of jinx (not to mention the odd spider!) on the main line...