We know what services London Underground thinks it can run if all goes to plan during the strike, but if things veer off course we'll try and document it here. Our own Geoff Marshall has made this map to show which services are planned to operate, and will update it if things change (click through to see the live version). Tweet us @Londonist and let us know your experiences. You can also read our article examining the reasons behind the strike or keep an eye on developments at the TfL website.
Thursday 6 February 5.40pm: District line services have shifted a bit, now running Ealing Broadway / Wimbledon to Upminster every 12 minutes and Earl's Court to Olympia every 20 minutes.
Er, we're off out now, but judging by what happened last night you can expect services and stations to start unexpectedly going out of service any time from about 8pm (maybe even before). Everything will definitely stop running by 11pm so make sure you're home by then or have alternative plans in place. Keep up with developments at the TfL website.
Thursday 6 February 4.30pm: service is wavering on the Jubilee line, gaps were up to 10 minutes earlier but are back to five now. Canada Water station is closed. The Cockfosters-Arnos Grove Piccadilly shuttle is back on but only about once every half hour. The Metropolitan line is running Harrow on the Hill to Uxbridge every 20 minutes and the District line's only managing to run a train every 12 minutes or so. Actually, the only lines where the official frequencies are lower than 10 minutes are the Victoria and Jubilee lines.
Thursday 6 February 2.05pm: the shuttle betwen Arnos Grove and Cockfosters on the Piccadilly line is no longer running. At the other end of the line, it's now a 30 minute frequency between Acton Town and Heathrow 123. The service between Waterloo and Stratford on the Jubilee line has also stretched out to every eight minutes instead of its earlier five.
Thursday 6 February 1.15pm: Mansell Street in the City is closed following a collision between a lorry and a pedestrian, who's died. Buses 15, 42, 78 and 100 are on diversion.
Thursday 6 February 11.30am: the Overground problems have all cleared up with the exception of minor delays between Gospel Oak and Barking.
Alistair Beavis took this photograph of Oxford Circus this morning, closed much later than normal. (It's now open for all lines.)
Thursday 6 February 11.10am: delays on Southern trains via East Croydon and Chiltern services into Marylebone.
Thursday 6 February 10.30am: oh, the Overground, you were meant to be our saviour. Severe delays between Stratford and Richmond because of overcrowding, severe delays between West Croydon and Sydenham because of that earlier signal failure and the TfL planner says severe delays between Gospel Oak and Barking but we think that's actually minor delays and someone's made a typo.
Londonist's Ruth snapped this at Old Street earlier, showing that the Northern line's "good service" isn't necessarily all it's cracked up to be.
Thursday 6 February 9.55am: that's interesting. Even though the strike finishes at 9pm tonight, the Victoria line Twitter feed says it could take up to 9am tomorrow to get services back to normal.
Thursday 6 February 9.50am: the Bakerloo line Twitter feed insists Marylebone station is open. Anyone actually walking past who can confirm either way? Or whether it's opened since Murad Qureshi walked past? This is the problem with tube strikes, stuff changes all the time.
Thursday 6 February 9.20am: you can get the District line to/from Blackfriars until 3pm but Southgate station, one of just four in that Piccadilly line Cockfosters-Arnos Grove shuttle, is currently closed.
Thursday 6 February 9am: London Assembly Member Murad Qureshi tweets a picture of a closed Marylebone station.
Thursday 6 February 8.55am: the Jubilee line Twitter account says Westminster is open, so we assume the line is running Stratford to Westminster.The Jubilee is still not running northbound between Finchley Road and Stanmore.
Thursday 6 February 8.50am: Holborn (Central line only), Tottenham Court Road and Mile End stations are open.
Thursday 6 February 8.30am: the Overground is currently suspended between Sydenham and West Croydon because of a signal failure and there are minor delays between Barking and Gospel Oak.
Thursday 6 February 8.20am: Tottenham Court Road is only closed to Central line trains, the Northern line is stopping. Tooting Bec, Old Street and Charing Cross are open, Angel is closed.
London Underground and the unions are going back to ACAS on Friday to try and avert next week's strike.
Thursday 6 February 8.15am: Paddington, Bond Street, Bethnal Green, Chancery Lane, Holborn, St Paul's and Tottenham Court Road are stations that are currently closed that weren't in TfL's original list.
Thursday 6 February 8am: the Central line is running all the way to Marble Arch from Epping and Hainault via Newbury Park and in the last couple of minutes the Bakerloo line has got a service running between Queens Park and Elephant and Castle, but only every 16 minutes.
Spare a thought for the poor sods looking after the Bakerloo line Twitter account. They took a lot of abuse yesterday from people who seem to have taken TfL's estimates of services it could likely run as set in stone, accusing them of "lying". We do think TfL may have been a bit too upbeat about its pronouncements and could have made it clearer that its plans depended on how effective the strike action was. In any case: be nice, everyone.
Thursday 6 February 7.55am: take a look at the service TfL thought it could run, truncated running and expected station closures.
Thursday 6 February 7:50am: once again the Bakerloo line isn't running. All other lines are up and running but with intervals of at least 10 minutes between trains, except the Victoria line (Seven Sisters to Brixton every five minutes) and the Waterloo-Stratford section of the Jubilee line (every five minutes) while Stanmore to Finchley Road is only operating southbound. The Northern line, like yesterday, is running as normal.
Wednesday 5 February 10pm: get home by 11pm since all lines will likely be stopped by then. The Metropolitan and Bakerloo lines have already packed up and gone home and the shuttle service on the Piccadilly between Arnos Grove and Cockfosters is only every half hour. Get the 298 bus, it'll be quicker.
So what have we learned today? If you want to avoid the tube either because you support the strike or don't want to risk it, the Overground is a good bet. Traffic's heavy so buses are getting stuck, but away from the major bus hubs (e.g., King's Cross, Vauxhall, Finsbury Park) people are getting on buses. And then sitting on them for a long time. In general it seems best to avoid the major interchanges of any form of transport if you can.
If you are getting the tube... If today repeats itself, it'll be well after 8am until lines start running properly. London Underground says it ran about a third of its normal service today, so will probably do the same tomorrow. During rush hour expect stations to open and close because of crowding or staffing. And has the Northern line started to shake off its reputation as the misery line, or only until the next Aslef strike?
Wednesday 5 February 6.45pm: oh, and Paddington. Paddington's still closed.
Southeastern services are still grinding along painfully. You know, in many ways we could do a liveblog like this every day, just tracking which bits of London public transport fall over at any given time.
Wednesday 5 February 6.15pm: maybe we got too excited about the Bakerloo line running. These are all the stations it's not calling at: Charing Cross (the whole station is closed), Edgware Road, Embankment, Kilburn Park, Lambeth North, Maida Vale, Piccadilly Circus and Regent’s Park.
The closed stations list has taken an odd turn. As far as we can tell it's listing all the stations that are on the sections of line that are running, even the stations that are closed. For example, the Jubilee line lists every station between Waterloo and Stratford and Finchley Road and Stanmore, even Bermondsey and Southwark which are closed. So, er, don't rely on it.
Wednesday 5 February 5.30pm: hells bells, the Bakerloo line is running between Queen's Park and Elephant and Castle about every eight minutes.
@TfLBusAlerts is warning that buses are delayed by up to 50 minutes in central London. Looks to be sheer volume of traffic, but at least this car vs bus smash on Oxford Street earlier seems to have cleared up. Also: two separate people tweeting photos of a group of horse riders on Oxford Street this morning.
Wednesday 5 February 3.50pm: the Overground is back to normal, and Southeastern's starting to return to normal though Cannon Street services are still seeing the greatest disruption.
Wednesday 5 February 2.15pm: in non-tube news, there are severe delays on the Overground because of a power supply problem at Willesden Green and a signal failure at London Bridge is completely cocking up Southeastern trains, dismaying all southeast Londoners who thought that for once, for bloody once, they'd have a better public transport service than the rest of London.
Wednesday 5 February 11.30am: this is the current situation and we expect things to remain this way until evening rush hour, probably the rest of the day. See our previous article for the list of planned station closures. Bear in mind that stations may close unexpectedly because of overcrowding or sudden staff shortage, and destinations may change at short notice. We'll post updates if anything significant happens.
Bakerloo: still not running and with no estimate of if it will
Central: trains running between White City and West Ruislip / Ealing Broadway and between Holborn and Epping via Hainault and Woodford about every 10 minutes
Circle: no service
District: trains roughly every six minutes between Wimbledon and Upminster and every 15 minutes between High Street Kensington and Ealing Broadway
Hammersmith and City: trains between Hammersmith and Moorgate about every 10 minutes. Paddington is closed
Jubilee: trains between Stanmore and Finchley Road and between Waterloo and Stratford every five minutes
Metropolitan: trains between Harrow on the Hill and Aldgate roughly every 10 minutes (though we have reports of some trains going as far as Rickmansworth)
Northern: good service, though Angel is closed and Old Street and Chalk Farm are open
Piccadilly: trains between Arnos Grove and Cockfosters every 12 minutes and between Acton Town and Heathrow 123 every 20 minutes. We wouldn't bother
Victoria: trains about every five minutes between Seven Sisters and Brixton
Waterloo and City: no service
Wednesday 5 February 10.30am: in addition to what was advertised, the Central line is now operating between Holborn and Epping via Hainault and Woodford and the Victoria line is running to Brixton. (The Bakerloo line is being described as a 'planned closure'. Er, no.) There are minor delays on the Northern line between Camden Town and High Barnet but will you be able to tell the difference between that and the frequencies running on the other lines? Doubtful.
Wednesday 5 February 10am: Joanne Oatts (@Oatssy) draws our attention to this work of genius – a map showing where trains actually are on the network, put together by Matthew Somerville. We'd sound one note of caution though, as it's clearly drawing its information from TfL's live running boards so the map shows trains on the Bakerloo line. (Why is the live running information still showing trains running on the Bakerloo? Is London Underground running ghost trains through there? It's driving us slightly potty.)
But for the other lines, you can see trains running up past Rickmansworth on the Metropolitan line, confirmed by @Oatssy, and also showing Central line trains going as far as Holborn which we've also had reported on Twitter.
Wednesday 5 February 9.20am: the eastern end of the Central line is currently running to Liverpool Street from Hainault, though it seems to be mainly westbound every 7-ish minutes. TfL's service updates widget says Victoria line trains are running to Stockwell (mainly southbound, it seems), while the live departure boards report destinations to Brixton – but, as we said earlier this morning, we wouldn't rely on them much (they still say the Bakerloo's running. It's not).
Wednesday 5 February 9.15am: one of our number reports hearing trains running on the Mill Hill East branch of the Northern line, and its Twitter account does appear to confirm there's a service.
Wednesday 5 February 9.10am: high winds mean the cable car is also not currently running. Poor Dangleway.
Wednesday 5 February 9.05am: oh good grief, and there are problems on First Great Western and Southeastern trains into London as well.
Wednesday 5 February 9am: busy train photos too – the BBC's Tom Edwards is on a national rail service to Moorgate, Alex Plim says London Bridge is hugely busy with passengers being held in the ticket hall. And speaking of London Bridge, TfL Commissioner Peter Hendy will be volunteering at the bus station later if anyone fancies having a word.
Over on Facebook, Verity Flecknell tells us Angel is closed (which wasn't planned for), Helena McAleer is another to report chaos at London Bridge and also Waterloo, Suzanna Nagy says it was "impossible to get out of Canary Wharf" and she ended up getting the Overground from Stratford, and much general bus busyness.
Wednesday 5 February 8.45am: photos on Twitter of terribly polite queues for buses in Wanstead and London Bridge.
There's a list of closed stations on TfL's website here; but it isn't including the stations where the Bakerloo line's closed (apart from those that were scheduled to be closed) so again we don't know how much you can rely on it. Linzie Reason tells us on Facebook that Paddington's completely closed and the real time departure boards seem to support that.
Wednesday 5 February 8.30am: yeah, the Bakerloo line is suspended until further notice. On the other hand, if you fancy a free trip on the river, boats are running between Canary Wharf and Westminster.
Wednesday 5 February 8.15am: the Bakerloo line Twitter feed has confirmed no services are running, which we think confirms our doubts about the information below. Eyewitness reports please!
Wednesday 5 February 8am: the TfL website is currently saying 'service will resume at 7am' for several lines, so we've looked at the real time running to try and see what's happening. The following is based on that, but the information seems a bit dubious:
Bakerloo: there looks to be a very limited service between Queens Park and Elephant and Castle
Central: the limited service seems to be running but the eastbound service between West Ruislip and White City seems to have only just started (barely any trains at either end of the section)
District: trains look to be running about every 5-10 minutes
Hammersmith and City: trains are leaving Hammersmith every few minutes and at Moorgate every 3-7 minutes but the departure boards seem to think trains are running to Aldgate, which they're not, so we don't how reliable this information is
Jubilee: the Waterloo-Stratford section has only just started. No trains scheduled to leave Canary Wharf yet and nothing due to leave Waterloo until about 8.20am. There's seriously confusing information about the Stanmore-Finchley Road section that's meant to run. Departure boards are even showing trains due at Baker Street, which shouldn't be happening
Metropolitan: trains appear to be running southbound only
Northern: is pretty much running
Piccadilly: can't find evidence of the Arnos Grove-Cockfosters section running and the Heathrow-Acton Town section has 10 minute gaps between trains
Victoria: seems to be primarily running southbound at this point
Tuesday 4 February 11.30pm: OK, it's now easier to say what's running. The Northern line, DLR and Overground are fine, the other lines are either fully suspended or part suspended with severe delays on what's running. We'll be back tomorrow morning.
Tuesday 4 February 11.15pm: full list of suspensions is Circle, Hammersmith and City, Metropolitan, Piccadilly, Victoria and Waterloo and City with part-suspensions on the Central and Jubilee lines.
Tuesday 4 February 11pm: the Central line's now got a partial service, suspended between White City and Leytonstone and Leytonstone and Hainault. As you'd expect, there are severe delays on the rest of the line.
The Victoria line's suspension is very curious. It's heavily automated and we assumed that's one of the reasons LU thought it could run almost the full route (in previous strikes, managers have been trained as drivers; an automated train would presumably be easier to learn). Mind you, the 'best case scenario' plan is only for Wednesday and Thursday 7am-11pm – it's a little early to make predictions for what could happen tomorrow based on tonight.
Tuesday 4 February 10.45pm: the Victoria line's now suspended due to staff shortages which, given that's the only line expected to be running in full tomorrow (Warren Street excepted), is ominous. The entire Central line is also now suspended.
Tuesday 4 February 10.15pm: the Jubilee line is no longer running between Waterloo and Stanmore with severe delays on the rest of the line (in fact @SaraSingh346 told us no trains were leaving Stratford as early as 8.30pm). The Bakerloo, Circle, Hammersmith and City, Metropolitan and Piccadilly lines are experiencing severe delays, there are minor delays on the Central, Victoria and District lines (though the District problems were caused by something on the track at Bromley by Bow!).
Tuesday 4 February 5pm: the strike starts at 9pm. RMT (PDF) and TSSA union members have been told not to 'book on' for shifts that start between 9pm on Tuesday and 8.59pm on Thursday 6 February. We believe this should mean that services will gradually peter out during Tuesday evening as staff come to the end of their shifts and nobody replaces them.
By Wednesday morning there will likely be no RMT or TSSA staff working. TfL estimates it will not be able to run any trains before 7am. It remains to be seen whether Aslef union members (drivers) will cross the picket lines. And, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but Wednesday's weather looks wet.
