Signalling systems failure!

PICCADILLY LINE: Suspended between Northfields/Rayners Lane and Hammersmith due to signalling systems failure. SEVERE DELAYS on the rest of the line.

DISTRICT LINE: Suspended between Turnham and Ealing Broadway due to signalling system failure at Acton Town. SEVERE DELAYS on the rest of the line. Also no Kensington Olympia - Earl's Court service.

pied from uk.transport.london:

What happened this morning was that the signal main [1] fell over at Acton, causing a total loss of signals in the Acton area. There was a night SSO [2] to man the Hammersmith desk so we could reverse trains at Hammersmith (Piccadilly) and run trains to Richmond (District). At about 07:00 the night SSO reached the end of his shift and despite the fact that due to the service disruption no early turn SSOs had arrived for work, he booked off and went home. As we now had no way of reversing anything running west of Arnos (we had about 15 trains at various points in the pipe at that time) A "Code Amber" [3] was put out by the controller and trains worked to platforms and the service suspended. The Picc was reduced to running a two train AG <>CK shuttle between about 07:00 and 07:45 when we got some SSOs in via special taxi to enable us to run some sort of service. That was a 25 train CK <> HAM shuttle and a shuttle (not sure how many trains) NF <> HR. As we had no signalling at Acton, the Rayners branch had no service. This continued until about 10:40 when we got the signal main back enabling us to run a CK <> HR service and a AT <> RL service. Because by now crews were hopelessly out of place and all early turn crews had booked on, this state continued until midday when we started to attempt to recover the service using the afternoon book ons. At about 13:00 my relief arrived at Arnos which is why I'm sitting here sucking on a beer writing this and not sitting on the desk at Arnos with coffee running into an IV and a wild look in my eye. On a personal note I'd like to thank any Picc drivers reading this for their help and assistance this morning, it was much appreciated. Currently top-man award goes to the Arnos night turn driver (rostered book off, round about 06:40) who got stuck up the Rayners branch and due to a series of mischance's, finally managed to get back to Arnos to book off at 12:15 this afternoon.

[1] Signal Main - term used to describe all the various bits of kit that get air and electricity to our signals.
[2] SSO - Senior Signal Operator, signalmen that control the Picc west ofTurnpike Lane.
[3] "Code Amber" - We have two "Oh Fcuk" general radio broadcasts that the Line Controller can use, "Code Red" means ALL trains, stop right where you are and do not move until you are told to. "Code Amber" means ALL trains run to the next station and do not move until you are told to.