The general secretary of the RMT union, Mick Lynch, has vowed “a sustained campaign of industrial action which will shut down the railway system”. His members working for Network Rail and 13 train operators are to strike on 21, 23 and 25 June, with effects on the intervening days and 26 June.
The aim to “shut down the railway system” in a dispute over jobs, terms and pay has not materialised, with Network Rail and train companies planning to run trains on about half the rail network in Great Britain, at least between 7.30am and 6.30pm.
But there are vast areas of England, Wales and Scotland that will see no passenger trains.
Here are all the services cancelled on strike days.
West and southwest England
Cornwall and Dorset are closed to trains.
Nothing will run west of Plymouth on the line to Penzance, nor on its branches. The lines from Exeter to Okehampton and Barnstaple will also be closed.
The link from London Waterloo to Exeter will close west of Basingstoke, and no trains will run west of Southampton to the New Forest, Bournemouth and Weymouth.
Gloucester and Cheltenham Spa, as well as Hereford and the Malverns, will see no rail services.
The Night Riviera sleeper train will not run.
Southeast England
Guildford and Portsmouth will be disconnected from each other and from London Waterloo. The line that stretches along the South Coast from Southampton via Brighton and Eastbourne to Ashford will close.
Crawley, Horsham, Arundel, Chichester, Worthing, Tonbridge, Hastings, Ramsgate and Margate are among the many stations with no trains.
London area
The key locations off the rail map are Kingston and Bromley South.
East Anglia
Lines serving the Suffolk and Norfolk coasts will be lost, as will the link from Ely to Norwich.
Midlands
Skegness, Lincoln, Worcester, Shrewsbury and anywhere else off the main lines will be cut off.
Wales
The nation is very hard hit, with only a few of the Valley lines into Cardiff and the link from the Welsh capital to Newport and into England open. Everything else – west of Cardiff, through the middle of the nation, along the north coast and connections with Chester and the Midlands – are closed.
Northern England
Key cities with no rail services include Chester and Hull, with the resorts of Blackpool and Southport in the west and Bridlington and Scarborough in the north off limits.
Some lovely stretches of line are closed: the Cumbria coast service, Middlesbrough to Whitby, Skipton to Carlisle and the line from there to Newcastle shadowing Hadrian’s Wall.
Scotland
As with Wales, almost nothing is running besides the East and West Coast main lines from, respectively, Berwick and Carlisle, and some links between Glasgow, Edinburgh and Bathgate. Anything north, or west of this – including the lines to Dumfries, Stranraer, Oban, Fort William, Stirling, Perth, Dundee, Aberdeen and Inverness is closed. Tourists are expected to be very hard hit.
The Caledonian Sleeper will not run.
