Power failure at Paddington cuts Elizabeth line to Heathrow and Reading

A power supply failure at Paddington has left the Elizabeth line with no service between Paddington and either Heathrow Terminals or Reading, TfL's status record showed on Friday 14 August 2026.

The record states: "No service between Paddington and Heathrow Terminals / Reading and SEVERE DELAYS between Paddington and Abbey Wood while we fix a power supply failure at Paddington. Tickets are being accepted on London Underground, London Buses, Great Western Railway and South Western Railway services. Please use the Piccadilly line to travel between Heathrow Airport and Central London. GOOD SERVICE on the rest of the line."

Four of the eleven Tube lines carry delays at the same time, and on one of them a section has no service at all.

The Northern is the line with the closed section. TfL states: "No service between Camden Town and High Barnet / Mill Hill East and SEVERE DELAYS on the rest of the line while we fix faulty trains in the East Finchley area. Tickets are being accepted on London Buses, London Trams, Thameslink, Great Northern and South Western Railway."

Severe delays run the length of the Jubilee, which TfL attributes to an earlier points failure at Stanmore. Tickets are being accepted on London Buses, the DLR, the Elizabeth line, the Mildmay line and Thameslink — one of which, the Elizabeth line, is the line with no service to Heathrow.

The Circle also has severe delays along its whole length, which TfL puts down to train cancellations. Circle tickets are accepted on London Buses, Thameslink and the Elizabeth line, and TfL tells passengers: "Please board the first train and change where necessary to complete your journey."

Minor delays on the Bakerloo complete the list, and TfL attributes those to train cancellations too.

Trains rather than track account for most of it. Of the five sets of delays, TfL blames three on rolling stock — cancellations on the Bakerloo and Circle, and faulty trains in the East Finchley area — and two on infrastructure, the points at Stanmore and the power supply at Paddington.

The rest of the network is running normally. A direct check returned good service on the Central, District, Hammersmith & City, Metropolitan, Piccadilly, Victoria and Waterloo & City lines, on the DLR, and on all six Overground lines: Liberty, Lioness, Mildmay, Suffragette, Weaver and Windrush.

Trams are shut between Reeves Corner and East Croydon until 23 August, which is planned engineering work rather than a fault. The Smoke reported that closure earlier this week, along with the restricted service between Arena and Elmers End running to 30 August.

None of the five entries carries an estimate of when the fault will be fixed, and the status feed offers no comparison with a normal day.

The ticket acceptance is the practical effect for passengers. A Northern line ticket is being taken by five other operators, a Jubilee ticket by five, an Elizabeth line ticket by four, and a Circle ticket by three.