Industrial action will cause severe disruption to rail travel this weekend, with 24-hour strikes and an overtime ban by train drivers affecting all Britain’s long-distance routes over the next four days.
Strikes by drivers in the Aslef union will stop most London-Edinburgh trains on the east coast mainline on Friday, and all trains on the west coast mainline running from the capital to Glasgow on Saturday, when passengers in the Midlands will also be particularly hard hit.
The latest strikes in a week of action started just after midnight on Friday at LNER, Greater Anglia and C2C, with no trains at all on C2C, the Essex commuter network. LNER and Greater Anglia will run a very limited service on some routes on Friday.
No trains at all will run across Avanti West Coast or East Midlands Railway during drivers’ strikes on Saturday. West Midlands Railway and its sister service London Northwestern will not operate on either Saturday or Sunday, with the strike and overtime ban wiping out all services.
The overtime ban, which applies to all operators during the strike period, is likely to have its biggest impact on Sunday, a rest day for many drivers. Avanti, Great Western and CrossCountry will all operate reduced timetables, while the West Midlands operators and Chiltern will not run any trains. Fewer trains than usual will run on Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern.
The last 24-hour strike will take place at Great Western, CrossCountry and Chiltern on Monday. Of the three, only GWR will operate any trains, although only a limited service.
The industrial action by drivers comes as part of the long-running pay dispute at all national rail operators contracted to the Department for Transport. While only England-based firms are directly affected by the strikes, cross-border rail services into Scotland and Wales will also be disrupted.
Train operators have advised passengers nationwide to check before they travel throughout the week. The overtime ban, which does not end until Tuesday evening, is liable to make short-term cancellations more likely across the network.
Aslef has warned it will continue to call disruptive industrial action until there is movement on its pay demands. The union rejected an 8% total increase that was pinned to revised working conditions as “risible”, with some drivers now having gone almost five years without a pay rise during soaring inflation.
The rail firms and the government have urged Aslef to first put its offer, which would take the average salary of a train driver up to £65,000, to its membership for a full vote.
The UK hospitality sector said it believed the latest week of action would cost it another £350m, with customers deterred from travel or nights out.
Laws brought in by the government designed to make trains run during strikes have failed to work, with no operators eventually trying to enforce the new minimum service levels powers.
