On Thu, 7 Jul 2005 19:42:28 +0100, "nick" wrote:

Was there a power surge?

If so, what caused it?

Certainly, if there was a power surge, there should be a very good
record that it occurred.

My personal thought is that this was just a cover story to avoid mass
panic while trying to evacuate the rest of the Underground network. At
this initial stage the total number of devices was unknown, and indeed
a possibility that gas or chemicals could have been used. I would
imagine therefore that they wanted to clear the network as quickly as
possible to prevent further injuries / deaths, but without causing
undue panic.

Certainly the very early report stated "British Transport Police said
the incident happened on the Metroplitan Line and may have been caused
by two trains colliding, a power cut or a power cable exploding",
which was vague considering they had enough information to decide to
close the whole network down.

Or maybe I'm just reading too much into it.

Duncan