"Ken" wrote in message
...

First of all, how can a 'power surge' cause a major explosion on one
train but not all of the others fed by the same substation? And there
were several trains. So, a system-wide 'surge'? Again, why would most
trains be unaffected?

And just how would the power supply apparently 'surge'? Maybe the grid
voltage could have shot up suddenly, but how? Wouldn't other
recipients of electricity (including National Rail electric services
in the London area) have noticed? And wouldn't the power supply, and
the trains, have had some protection?

Firstly, the story wasn't fabricated. Having been at Liverpool Street at the
time, standing in the main booking hall when the explosion occurred, I went
to the control room to take charge of the incident. As the control room
staff had already started the evacuation I contacted the Central Line
controller to advise them we were evacuating and for trains to non-stop,
stating there'd been a "rather large bang". The indications at the time at
that station, and other stations who were phoning us to find out what had
happened had the same symptoms as when a 22KV cable in a tunnel at Earls
Court failed. Obviously those who were receiving more information from other
parts of the network would have soon realised that as there were multiple
incident sites at the same time something far worse had happened, but I
would guess they were too busy dealing with life-saving at multiple sites to
give the press an update.

Incidentally, having seen the site at Aldgate, I was technically correct
regarding the 22kv cable, as it had, indeed, been vaporised.