Rail passengers across Lanarkshire face days of disruption as two more periods of strike action on the tracks get underway.
Limited daytime services will run on only 11 routes across Scotland – seven of which are in Lanarkshire – today and on Saturday, August 18 and 20, as members of the RMT, TSSA and Unite unions working for Network Rail walk out in a continued pay dispute.
Additional services have been added to the emergency timetable meaning there will be now be limited trains on the intercity line running through Airdrie and Coatbridge, plus an hourly service calling at Gartcosh, Greenfaulds and Cumbernauld.
The nationwide strike action “will close most of the rail network in Scotland”, and follows on from four similar days of action in the past two months.
Passengers are being asked “only to travel by train on strike days if absolutely necessary” with services only running between 7.30am and 6.30pm on the two affected days and resuming later than normal on each of Friday and Sunday mornings.
Services are this time being provided on the Helensburgh to Edinburgh route which runs through Monklands, after the area was left without any trains on the previous strike days.
There will be two trains per hour running through Caldercruix, Drumgelloch, Airdrie, Coatdyke, Sunnyside and Blairhill, with the first departure and last arrival at Airdrie respectively being at 7.30am and 6.15pm.
Croy will now see a total of three trains per hour as two routes from Glasgow Queen Street – to both Edinburgh and Larbert – will call at the stop; while an hourly daytime service from the city station to Falkirk Grahamston will call at Gartcosh, Greenfaulds and Cumbernauld.
Lanarkshire stations on the Glasgow Central to Hamilton/Larkhall and Lanark lines will again have half-hourly trains, along with one per hour on the intercity line via Shotts – but the East Kilbride line will again have no trains at all.
Network Rail route director Liam Sumpter said: “This week’s strikes will once again cause significant disruption and we’re doing everything we can to minimise the impact on passengers, businesses and the wider community.
“I’m pleased we’ve been able to double the number of services we can offer and connect more stations on strike days – stand-in signallers will be in place to keep the main lines between our two biggest cities open on strike days [along with] other critical freight lines in the central belt.
“However, passengers should remember that most services won’t be running; please check your journey in advance as those services that are operating will finish much earlier in the evening.”
Workers from train operator Scotrail are not involved in the strike, but the company says: “It will not be possible to run the vast majority of services, as many of the Network Rail staff due to take part occupy safety-critical roles”.
Service delivery director David Simpson said: “It’s very unfortunate to see such widespread disruption across the whole rail network and we know this will be frustrating for customers.
“We are able to operate on more routes than on the previous day of strike action; however, we are still only able to run a very limited number of services, so we’re advising customers to seek alternative means of transport and only travel if they really need to.”
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