A train strike is set to bring disruption to services on the London Euston route within days.
Travel on the UK railways has been a sticky affair this summer, marred by back-to-back heatwaves bringing issues like melting tracks, signal faults and reduced timetables, while the Tube has dealt with its own strikes.
Now passengers have been told to prepare for disruption on the London Northwestern Railway on the West Coast Main Line routes because of a strike on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
Here is a roundup of the affected routes and what services will run.
When is the next rail strike?
The walkout will result in fewer trains being run on LNR’s routes between Euston, Birmingham and Crewe.
Some sections will have no trains, the train company warned and urged people to check their trip on the journey planner.
One train per hour will run on these routes on Friday and Saturday:
- Birmingham – Liverpool
- London Euston – Crewe
- Birmingham – Euston via Northampton
- Milton Keynes – Euston
- Watford Junction – St Albans Abbey
On Friday, no trains will run after 7pm, and several routes will wrap up earlier than usual. The final London Euston to Crewe departure will be at 3.46pm.
On Saturday, trains will start later than usual, and the following routes will have just one train per hour, and the services that run are likely to be busy.
Meanwhile, the Marston Vale Line linking Bedford and Bletchley, and the Stafford-Crewe via Stoke-on-Trent will have no service on Friday and Saturday.
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Although the strike finishes on Saturday night, some knock-on disruption is expected on Sunday morning because of displaced trains, LNR said.
Roster clerks and duty train crew managers are set to walk out as part of an ongoing row over rest day working payments.
The issue has been brewing for months, sparking strike action on the West Midlands Railway, the parent company of LNR, in May.
Avanti West Coast services are unaffected.
Why is the rail strike happening?
TSSA union has called the strike on West Midlands Trains after a row over rest day working payments.
The union, which has over 17,000 members in the UK and Ireland, says the walkout is due to the rail operator and government’s failure to assure that the workers’ rest day agreement will be brought in line with other unions.
TSSA’s General Secretary Maryam Eslamdoust said: ‘These strikes will go ahead as planned because our members have not been given parity with those in other unions – a perfectly reasonable demand.
‘As things stand we face an intolerable situation. Our reps at West Midlands Trains have consulted the membership and they remain determined to proceed with their legitimate action.
‘The last round of industrial action caused a significant impact to services and the same will happen this time around. Of course, as ever our union only takes strike action as a last resort, so we hope that our demands can be met in coming days to avoid any more disruption.’
LNR’s customer experience director Jonny Wiseman said: ‘We are disappointed TSSA has called further unnecessary strike action which is set to cause significant disruption for our customers. We are working hard to reach a resolution to this dispute and urge TSSA to continue talks.
‘We are sorry for the inconvenience this will cause our customers and we are doing everything we can to minimise the impact as much as possible. If the strike action does go ahead we will be running a significantly reduced timetable on both dates.’
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