London's creaking transport system has struggled back up to speed after a massive power failure paralysed the city and left 500,000 commuters stranded.
Yesterday's blackout at the height of the evening rush hour, echoing the chaos that gripped New York earlier this month, provoked the fury of London Mayor Ken Livingstone who called the National Grid power cut "an absolute disgrace."
The lights went out for half an hour across the city of eight million people, but the knock-on effect was severe. Passengers were trapped on underground trains, railway stations were closed and thousands of frustrated travellers took to the rain-soaked streets to get home.
National Grid Transco, the privatised company that runs the country's main power lines, said the fault had been quickly rectified and power was restored to all customers.
But Mr Livingstone, called for an urgent inquiry. "The grid should never go down for that length of time," he said. "It is so similar to what happened in New York. We just don't invest in the way the French and Germans do and we suffer because of it," he said.
By last night, about half of the London Underground train lines through central London had returned to their regular service.
Earlier this month, one of the largest power outages in North American history blacked out New York and other major US and Canadian cities overnight, disrupting life for millions of people and trapping thousands in lifts and on crowded subways.
Although much of England suffers periodic outages when storms hit power lines, the nation's capital, where cables are mainly underground, has avoided the most disruptive blackouts since miners' strikes plunged London homes into darkness in 1974.