Central line strike: Everything you need to know

The industrial action also affects the Waterloo & City line

The whole line will be closed on Friday (Daniel Lynch)

Drivers on London Underground’s Central line and Waterloo & City line are staging a 24-hour strike today, disrupting thousands of commuters’ journeys.

Transport for London met with drivers’ union Aslef earlier this week in a bid to resolve the issues and avoid industrial action, but talks have so far proved unsuccessful.

Here’s everything we know.

When is the Central line strike?

It started at 12.01am on Friday 5 October and will finish on Saturday 6 October, with normal service resumed by mid-morning. The Central line twitter account tweeted: “Services should start returning to normal on Saturday between 8am and 10am.”

Another strike is also planned for 7 November unless further talks with the union prove more fruitful.

How will the strike affect journeys?

There will be no service on the Central line throughout the day, including the Night Tube. The action will also affect the Waterloo & City line, which will have little to no service all day.

Customers travelling to or from Ealing Broadway are advised to use the District line or TfL Rail services, while those travelling from West Ruislip should use nearby Ruislip or Ickenham stations on the Metropolitan and Piccadilly lines. Customers travelling to or from stations on the Hainault loop can use TfL Rail services via Ilford, although these are expected to be extremely busy.

For customers travelling to central London, all other Tube lines are expected to run as normal. However, interchange stations along the Central and Waterloo & City lines – Stratford, Liverpool Street, Tottenham Court Road, Bond Street, Mile End, Waterloo, Bank, Oxford Circus and Holborn stations in particular – will be much busier than usual.

There will be around an additional 80 buses in operation to help customers complete their journeys along 10 regular routes and two night bus routes. Buses, DLR, London Overground and TfL Rail services will accept Tube single and return tickets and National Rail cross-London tickets on reasonable alternative routes.

TfL Travel Ambassadors will be at key locations to provide travel information and advice to customers affected by the action.

Customers are advised to check the TfL website before travelling and to consult the TfL Twitter accounts, including @TfLTravelAlerts and @Centralline, as well as the TfL Travelbot on Facebook messenger, for real-time information.

How bad is it?

Passengers shared pictures this morning of huge crowds at Ilford station.​ TfL tweeted: “Ilford, Manor Park and Forest Gate will have a queuing system in place this morning due to @centralline strike. ​Queuing systems may also be put in place at other stations.”

Tara Lee responded: “Ilford now – you would’ve hoped someone at @TfLRail could have implemented a proper queueing system but no. Crowd rush it is.”

Why are drivers striking?

Finn Brennan, Aslef’s organiser on London Underground, said: “Industrial action is always the last resort but, given the intransigence of management on a whole range of issues affecting our members, we have reluctantly decided this is our only course of action.”

He said the strike was over a number of issues linked by “a basic failure to treat drivers with fairness and respect.

“Management seem to think of drivers as an appendix of the trains they operate, not as human beings.

“We have seen drivers dismissed because of one mistake after a quarter of a century of excellent service or reduced in grade because they had the temerity to take time off sick after a traumatic incident.

“London Underground management has had ample opportunities to resolve this dispute but they have chosen not to because they believe they will get what they want by using sticks instead of carrots.

“They have abused the disciplinary and attendance procedure to try to create a climate of fear on the Central Line.”

Nigel Holness, TfL’s Director of Network Operations for London Underground, said: “We have met with the ASLEF leadership to try to work with them to avoid strike action and I urge them to continue these positive discussions so that Londoners don’t experience disruption this week.”