Don’t get annoyed – get informed (Picture: Getty//Pa/Alamy Credit: METRO/Mylo

Grumbling about the London Underground is an unavoidable part of living in London. And not much gets Londoners’ goats more than delayed trains.

Oh, and its expense of course.

If you rely on a specific route to commute to work though then there’s nothing more annoying that hearing the dreaded announcement of ‘severe delays’.

Ever wondered just how bad delays really are on your line? Do other people have it worse travelling on different ones?


It turns out if you’re in a hurry or are late to work, it’s the District line you should be avoiding.

We looked at TfL performance data and dug out which lines had the most trains delayed by more than 15 minutes in the last decade. The District line has had the most in total in that period at 3,441.



It is shortly followed by the Metropolitan Line with 3,087 delayed trains between 2005-2010.

Number of trains delayed longer than 15 minutes in total between 2005-2015

In seven of these 10 years moreover, the District line had the most delayed trains. The exception was between 2011-2014, when the Metropolitan line took the crown.

The District and Metropolitan lines are two Underground services alongside the Circle and Hammersmith lines that Transport for London have identified as needing improvements.

They are all set for a radical modernisation, announced in August this year.

The lines’ signalling and control systems will have a much needed upgrade, as some have been in place untouched since the early 20th Century.

It is hoped that by 2022 there will be 32 trains running through Central London on these lines per hour, boosting capacity by a third.

The horror (Photo: Getty)

David Waboso, London Underground’s capital programmes director, said: ‘Londoners are already seeing a rapidly improving Tube network with a cut in delays of 40 per cent in recent years thanks to major investment in new track, trains and signalling.

‘However, we of course recognise that some lines still need to be upgraded to keep pace with the huge demand for services.

‘We will now be improving the District and Metropolitan lines with new trains and signalling, which will mean faster, more reliable journeys for customers.’

The other good news is that there has indeed been a huge improvement in delays across the entire service. In the last decade, the number of trains delayed by over 15 minutes overall has halved.

Looks like things may be on the up for London commuters.