Tubes and wet concrete don’t mix

When ‘Victoria line closed due to flooding at Victoria Station’ bellowed out throughout the London underground network after lunch on Thursday 23 January many travellers barely raised an eyebrow. Hardly surprising due to the record rainfall England has been suffering from of late.

For once, though, our weather wasn’t to blame, but rather builders and some wet concrete practiced in the art of escapology.

Wet quick-drying concrete – being used by contractors upgrading Victoria Station – appears to have escaped through a void in the escalator machine room into the Victoria line signal control room. Damage limitation came from the engineers’ quick-thinking and chemical knowledge. The solution was surprisingly simple: as many bags of sugar as they could lay their hands on.