Londoners face another gruelling rush hour as multiple Tube lines are seeing severe delays after another testing day for travel.
Bleary-eyed commuters arrived at stations across the city to find that their normal route to work was either suspended or severely delayed.
The culprit? In most cases, the rough weather front that swept over London and the south with thousands of lightning strikes and flooding after heavy rain.
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As the city heads into the exodus of commuters trying to leave London, problems are being reported on the following routes:
- Central
- Circle
- District
- Metropolitan
- Piccadilly
- Mildmay
- Tram services
The worst affected are the Circle and District lines, which have severe delays on the entire line because of the earlier signal failure, which has caused issues all day.
The Metropolitan Line is still experiencing severe delays between Aldgate and Baker Street, and the stretch between Moor Park and Chesham, and Harrow and Uxbridge have minor delays.
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The chaos looks likely to clear up before this evening’s rush hour, albeit with delays on a few lines.
The Central line has minor delays between North Acton and Ealing Broadway, North Acton and West Ruislip, Epping and Leytonstone, and Hainault and Leytonstone.
The Piccadilly line is listed with minor delays between Acton Town and Rayners Lane after earlier train cancellations.
Tram services in south London between Mitcham Junction and Therapia Lane are out of action following a fault with the overhead power lines.
Like tracks, overhead lines can be affected by extreme heat as it can cause them to expand and sag.
Which Tube lines are the hottest?
Only 40% of trains across the network have air conditioning – on the Circle, Hammersmith & City, District and Metropolitan lines – keeping temperatures around 19.3°C on average.
An investigation last year found that the hottest Tube line on the TfL network is the Victoria line, which has reached temperatures of 32C.
Following that is the Central, Bakerloo, Northern and Piccadilly lines.
The Jubilee, Waterloo and City Lines rank last, only being one-upped by their air-conditioned counterparts.
The Circle, District, Hammersmith and City, DLR, Elizabeth, Metropolitan, London Trams, IFS Cloud Cable Car and all London Overground Lines are all air conditioned.
Heavy rainfall led to flooding and delays
For two hours London faced biblical rainfall during a thunderstorm between 3.30am and 5.30am which brought flooding.
That brought down the Elizabeth Line between Heathrow Terminals 2 and 3, and Terminal 4. Elsewhere, there were signalling issues across London, believed to be from the heat and thunderstorm.
Claire Mann from TfL warned there are likely to be problems across the network throughout the week because of the weather. She said: ‘we are likely to see some disruption to rail and Tube services – with rail temperatures likely to lead to temporary speed restrictions and therefore reduced services in some cases.
‘This will vary by line, with some services that share parts of the overground rail network – like the Overground and the Elizabeth line – likely to be more affected.’
The UK is facing a rare weather warning for extreme heat covering six regions across England and Wales.
Forecasters expect the June temperature record of 35.6°C to be smashed this week, and the UK could see its highest ever temperature, breaking the record of 40.3°C in July 2022.
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