A weekend of travel chaos is looming this weekend as rail workers prepare for their third day of industrial action this week.
Passengers have been warned to “only travel by train if necessary”, with only a fifth of services set to run and half of lines closed as 40,000 members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union walk out over jobs, pay, pensions and conditions.
Meanwhile, services on Friday reeled from a knock-on impact of Thursday’s strike, because of a delay to the start of services as signallers and control room staff declined to turn up for overnight shifts.
This week’s strikes are unlikely to be the end of the disruption, however, with an announcement that another union – the Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) – will vote on industrial action throughout the summer.
The union’s general-secretary Manuel Cortes warned on Friday of “a long-running summer of discontent across our rail network” unless ministers either give the green light for operators to “make us a reasonable offer” or “come to the negotiating table and speak to us directly”.
