Chaos on the Underground with a ‘Runaway Train’

This morning London Underground staff managed to divert disaster when a runaway rail maintenance train went through six stops on a 13-minute journey along London’s tube, causing other trains to be cleared from its path.  The engineering train which was unmanned had become uncoupled while it was being towed on the Northern Line near Archway station this morning.

It began to move from Archway station on the Northern line just before 7am, just as thousands of commuters started filling the stations it then passed through Tufnell Park, Kentish Town, Camden Town, Mornington Crescent and Euston before coming to a stop at Warren Street. Many passenger trains were diverted to another branch of the Northern Line out of the trains possible path, as well as trains being cleared from the Charing Cross branch.

The incident cause disruption on the tubes this morning as well as worrying passenger’s there at the time, one passenger said: “I was on the Tube ahead of the runaway train and we jumped seven stops. The driver told us that we had to move at the front of the carriage immediately as we had an emergency”.

An investigation has now been launched to find out how the incident occurred, it’s thought that at about 0525 BST, the engineering train, became defective as it approached Archway, engineers had begun to move the defective train northbound by coupling it to an out of service Northern Line train. However at 0644 BST, the engineering train became detached from the out of service train and began to move southbound.

A spokesman said: “Staff undertook a swift assessment of the incident and an operational decision was made to allow the train to continue, until it came to a stand at Warren Street on the Charing Cross branch of the Northern line, which it did at 6.57am. Throughout the incident, LU staff monitored the situation, including the position of passenger trains. LU staff moved to divert passenger trains to the City branch, and direct the engineering train to the Charing Cross branch where passenger trains had been cleared. Services on the Charing Cross branch of the Northern line were then suspended”.

Picture courtesy of davidhc

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