Transport for London have confirmed there will be no fresh disruption on the London Underground that looked set to affect Manchester City and Liverpool fans travelling to the FA Cup semi-final at Wembley on Saturday.
City and Liverpool fans are already facing a disrupted journey to London for the semi-final, with no direct trains from the North West due to planned improvement works across the weekend. As a result, fans of both clubs called for the venue of the semi-final to be moved, and Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp criticised the decision to keep the fixture at Wembley despite over a year of notice of the rail disruptions.
Earlier this week, TfL confirmed ‘urgent safety checks’ on trains on the Metropolitan Line of the tube after a fault was discovered with train wheels — impacting fans planning to use that route to get to the Wembley Park station. Now, though, they have said there will be enough trains to run a normal service on the line.
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In a statement on Thursday, TfL told the Manchester Evening News: “A normal weekend service will be running on the Metropolitan line from Saturday 16 April to Monday 18 April, and on weekends and bank holidays in the coming weeks.
“Customers travelling to Wembley for the FA Cup Semi Finals this weekend are advised to check before they travel as the network could be busier. Alternative routes, including Jubilee line services and Chiltern Railways, will also be running to Wembley.
“Details of the weekend service on the Metropolitan line can be found here: https://tfl.gov.uk/tube/timetable/metropolitan/
“We have undertaken detailed checks of our Metropolitan line trains, following a fault that we found with some of the wheels on the fleet. Following those checks and while the faulty wheels are fixed, we have enough trains to run a normal weekend service.”
In light of the rail disruption, City said they would provide extra supporter coaches, while the FA confirmed they would lay on free coaches for 5000 fans between both clubs for the fixture.
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