Waterloo and City line suspended: Tube commuters stranded after power cut at Waterloo station

Waterloo: Power was cut off at the busy mainline station.
Ian N @ianxn Twitter

Commuters faced rush hour disruption as the Waterloo and City line was suspended because of an overnight power cut.

Passengers were forced to use other routes between Britain's busiest station and the City on Wednesday morning.

Transport for London said it was because of a local power failure at Waterloo station.

Passengers travelling through the mainline station were also hit by the power cut as departure boards, escalators and Oyster card readers were reportedly not working.

At around 8am, power was restored at the station and the Tube line was back up and running.

Black out: Departure boards at Waterloo station on Wednesday morning.
Ian N @ianxn Twitter

The problems started on Tuesday night when passengers reported Waterloo station was in black-out.

Departure boards were blank, the lights were reportedly off and travellers said they were “playing platform lottery”.

On Wednesday morning South West Trains apologised to customers who arrived to find Waterloo station without power.

They said on Twitter: “Apologies for this, this is due to a local power failure affecting London Waterloo.”

One passenger, called Shell, said they arrived at Bank at 6.30am to find the Waterloo and City line still shut and no announcements.

On Tuesday Amber Louise McGough said: “A powercut in Waterloo station and the staff are incredible organised and calm despite the constant stream of people.”

Another passenger, Maria Longley, said they were “playing platform lottery” at the station.

South West Trains said on Wednesday information screens and announcements at the station were not working.

In a message to passengers they said: "Due to one of our servers being located at London Waterloo, some of our systems for updating our boards across the network are also out of action, and as a result, it may take slightly longer than normal for our boards to change in the event of train alterations.

"Furthermore, no train alterations will be advertised on the JourneyCheck page of our website until the issue can be resolved. We are sorry for the inconvenience caused to you."

A spokeswoman for Transport for London said engineers worked through the night to fix the local power failure.

Platform lighting was fixed at Waterloo at 7.30am and the Waterloo and City line was restored at just before 8am.

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