Well, utter chaos on the Underground in general last night! Unfortunately the Piccadilly got off to a bad start with an incident at Bounds Green, followed by signal failures, followed by problems with the computer that governs the signalling at our end. I didn't actually start work until 5pm, but got a nice dose of the earlier problems because I had to go to Ashfield House for my second stage train op assessment. Luckily I missed the morning problems by about 15 minutes, but my journey back took about an hour and a half instead of the hour or so I would have expected - thankfully I got back just in time for a bus, so I didn't have the added annoyance of waiting long for that to turn up. As it was I still only had an hour at home before having to go back into work.

When I arrived the lines were already dropping like flies, with severe delays on quite a lot of the lines, and a part suspension on the District, and as the first hour of my shift passed, more and more turned from delays to part suspension to full suspension. In the end the state of play was:

Bakerloo - Part Suspended - No service Queen's Park to Elephant & Castle.
Central - Suspended
Circle - Suspended
District - Suspended
East London Line - Suspended
Hammersmith & City - Suspended
Jubilee - Good Service
Metropolitan - Suspended
Northern - Good Service
Piccadilly - Part Suspended - No service Rayners Lane to Uxbridge, Severe Delays on the rest of the line
Victora - Suspended
Waterloo & City - Suspended

Due to the earlier problems we had large gaps in trains anyway, and we weren't helped by the fact that news was going out regarding the strike saying that "Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly are unaffected"... strictly speaking we weren't affected much at that point, but we *were* still under the effects of the signal failures! So people were turning up expecting a normal service from us and we had fifteen minute gaps between trains, some trains being taken out of service because the drivers had gone right up to their shift time and there were no reliefs, etc, etc, etc. Then, just as the worst gaps were out of the way and the last of the peak passengers had come through, the line controller told us we'd be withdrawing and only running Heathrow - Northfields and Hyde Park Corner - Cockfosters. Trains were still being taken out of service, so we were having to run up and down and tell them this since frequently the drivers themselves didn't know yet, plus on top of it all someone who had been "drinking a bit" because it was his birthday decided to collapse on the platform.

With all the excitement I barely had time to fret about how the assessment had gone, which was rather a relief! The shift passed pretty quickly, and I helped to tip one train out - not that there were many people on it. I also had to show the supervisor how to use the new PA system since he'd been away on paternity leave until recently and didn't know how to use it as a result. People did keep asking if we'd have service tomorrow, though, and the answer was "Goodness only knows!". At the moment, at least, it seems we're running a good service apart from Rayners Lane to Uxbridge, which is Metropolitan track. The Bakerloo is fully suspended today, however.