Commuters across London faced a disrupted start to the day on Wednesday, 3 December 2025, as three major Tube lines were hit by severe delays during the morning rush hour.
Points failure causes major disruption
The primary cause of the chaos was a points failure at Acton Town station. This critical infrastructure issue had a significant knock-on effect, causing severe delays on both the Piccadilly and District lines.
The entire length of the Piccadilly line was severely delayed as a result. On the District line, passengers experienced the same level of severe disruption specifically on the section between Turnham Green and Ealing Broadway.
Separate issue on the Bakerloo line
In a separate incident adding to the morning's travel woes, the entire Bakerloo line was also facing severe delays. Transport for London (TfL) confirmed this was due to a late finish of scheduled engineering work, unrelated to the problems in Acton Town.
As of the early morning updates, it remained unclear when normal service would resume on any of the three affected lines, leaving thousands of passengers seeking alternative routes.
Further issues across the network
The disruption was not confined to the Underground. Elsewhere on the TfL network, the Suffragette line (formerly known as the London Overground in North and East London) was running a reduced service. Some scheduled trains before 7am were cancelled, compounding travel difficulties for early morning travellers.
This multi-line failure created a perfect storm for London's rush hour, highlighting the network's vulnerability to single points of failure and the cascading effect they can have on commuters across the city.
