LONDON - Normal services may not resume on three of London's 12 underground rail lines for another two weeks or longer to allow for repair work to tracks and tunnels damaged in the July 7 bombings, rail operators said Tuesday.
Operator Transport for London said a full service would not be restored to the capital's major Piccadilly line for "several weeks" as investigations at the site of the worst of the blasts near the line's Russell Square station continued.
"Russell Square is the subject of a criminal investigation which may last for some time," Transport for London said in a statement.
However, two other lines -- the Circle and District -- were expected to resume normal services within two weeks, a spokesman said.
Edgware Road station, also closed since the attacks, would reopen in a fortnight after a damaged train was lifted out by crane.
Aldgate Tube station in London's east would open as early as Monday. Damage at the site from a bomb was confined to cabling and not expected to be major, the rail operator said.
A full service on the Metropolitan line, which has also been disrupted since the bombings, would also resume on Monday if Aldgate station opened on schedule.
"We have engineers and all the materials standing by, ready to go, to get the Tube back and running as soon as possible," London Underground Chief Executive Tim O'Toole said in a statement.
Fifty-six people died in the bombings on board three trains and one bus, throwing London's transport system into chaos for several days.
London's Underground carries 3 million passengers a day.
Transport officials had previously refused to predict when normal service would resume, saying they had been unable to assess the damage until police finished gathering evidence.
In early 2003, the Central Line which carries almost 600,000 passengers a day across the capital was forced to close for 11 weeks after a train dropped an engine and ploughed into a station wall, injuring 32 passengers.
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