Hundreds stranded as power failure hits Tube

Hundreds were stranded on a train for two hours near Bond Street station.

Another train was stuck at Westminster for about 15 minutes following the power failure at 7.13am, which halted all services between Wembley Park and Waterloo.

Mayor Ken Livingstone was caught up in the knock-on delays and arrived an hour late for a Transport for London Board meeting.

The driver of the Bond Street service - stuck 300 yards from the platform - could not restart his train once power resumed and, when all efforts to get the vehicle going failed, another was brought up to try to push from the rear.

But after that too failed, a decision was made to evacuate the 460 on board and walk them along the track.

Tube chiefs ordered 20 staff to help with the evacuation and hand out bottles of mineral water.

The first passenger reached Bond Street at 9.15am and the last at 9.48am - two hours 17 minutes after their train came to a halt. The problems on the Jubilee line also caused disruption on the Metropolitan line.

Trains were delayed because of major overcrowding as commuters changed from stranded Jubilee line trains to the Metropolitan, which runs along part of the same route.

The Waterloo & City line was suspended between 9am and 9.20am, again due to overcrowding. The District line suffered minor delays due to an unconnected signal problem at Whitechapel.

A London Underground spokeswoman-said: "We apologise profusely to all those caught up in the delays this morning. This was caused by a main power failure. The system is designed to shut down when this happens to protect the on-board computers.

"But there were problems with a train at Bond Street which would not restart."

The spokeswoman added: "All passengers were evacuated safely and nobody required medical attention."

Full Jubilee line services resumed shortly before 11am. Engineers launched an investigation to try to find the cause of the power failure.