The fire at Rayners Lane station sent toxic fumes billowing across the station and caused temporary disruption to the Piccadilly and Metropolitan lines.
A union has called for e-bikes to be banned from the London Underground after one exploded on a Tube station platform.
The incident at Rayners Lane station sent toxic fumes billowing across the station and caused temporary disruption to the Piccadilly and Metropolitan lines.
A cyclist was wheeling the bike towards a train and was about to board when it exploded.
The London Fire Brigade had to be called and extinguished the blaze.
Aslef, the train drivers’ union, is now threatening strike action unless Transport for London bans e-bikes.
According to Aslef, the explosion, at around 11.30am on February 27, scattered debris along the platform, sending flames shooting into the air, but “could have been much worse”.
Aslef said an internal London Underground investigation concluded that the e-bike was “only moments away from boarding the train” and that if the explosion had happened on board the train, the outcome would have been much more severe.
TfL banned e-scooters and e-unicycles from the Tube in 2021 after two alarming incidents – blazes on a District line train and in a Jubilee line depot.
But there is no ban on e-bikes being taken on the Tube, despite them using similar lithium batteries to re-scooters and thus posing the same kind of fire risk.
Aslef accused Tube managers of “refusing to ban explosive e-bikes”.
Finn Brennan, Aslef’s organiser on the Underground, said: “An explosion onboard a train would almost certainly have led to serious causalities or deaths.
“And if it led to a derailment, there was a real risk of a mass casualty event.
“The absolute hypocrisy of banning scooters and other battery-operated vehicles, but not e-bikes is staggering – and a real risk to passengers, platform staff, and Tube train drivers.
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