During rush hour on the 10 March 2016, the Victoria line was temporarily suspended between the Brixton and Victoria tube stations. The delays were reportedly caused by signal failures at the Brixton station.

One of the tube station workers who was there at the time said: “It wasn’t a big deal or anything but it got worse when they thought trains could crash or something. I don’t know exactly what happened. It’s worse because it’s a busy time of day and there are a lot of people here who have places to be and they’re getting angry at us.”

With the Victoria line being the only line that operates at the station, many people were left stranded at the station. “It’s hard to deal with this many people,” another worker said. “Most of the time the delays aren’t even caused by anything serious.”

At around seven in the evening, the problems were fixed and the trains were running smoothly again. Transport for London revealed that the delays had been caused by a newspaper that fell onto the tracks and obstructed the signals that are used to make sure the trains are a safe distance apart.

The delays were minimal at first but then became more severe when the tube’s technical staff realized what the issue was. If the signals aren’t working properly, then there is a risk of trains running to close together and possibly colliding.

This is the second time in the past week that the Victoria line as been affected by severe delays. Just a few days before, the Oxford Circus tube station had to be evacuated after a train was deemed defective and a stretch of the Victoria Line between Warren Street and Brixton was shut down.

“It seems like there’s always something going wrong with the tube,” said Anna, 25, who was at the Brixton station at the time of the delays. “It took me an hour to make a trip that should have taken fifteen minutes. But that seems to happen a lot.”