Passengers Warned to Check Before Travelling on Strike Days | |
Further industrial action will hit tube and train services Passengers are being advised by both Transport for London (TfL) and the train operating companies (TOCs) to check before they travel on days likely to be affect by strikes. After the day of industrial action on Saturday there are further strikes planned on Wednesday 5 October and Saturday 8 October with knock on effects likely on the following days. The RMT Union and ASLEF, which represents train drivers, as well as the TSSA, whose members are mainly salaried staff, originally planned to hold the strikes in September, but they were postponed following the death of the Queen. ASLEF will be striking on Wednesday 5 October and members of the RMT union will be off work on Saturday 8 October. TSSA staff are taking strike action on Great Western Railway on 5 October. The strikes by ASLEF will affect 12 train operators including London Overground and Great Western Railway. On Wednesday 5 October strike action is taking place by train drivers on London Overground who are part of the ASLEF union meaning that there will be no service on the entire London Overground network. A normal service is expected to resume on London Overground by the end of the following morning. London Underground services other than some parts of the Elizabeth Line are not expected to be affected by this strike. The Night Overground services which commences on Friday 7 October will run until around 4:00am on Saturday 8 October, which is an earlier finish than normal. On Saturday 8 October, RMT strike action on national rail services will impact services on London Overground with no services between 4:00am and 8:00am and after 6pm. A reduced service will operate between 8:00an and 6pm. A Saturday Night Overground service will not operate Parts of the District and Bakerloo lines will also be disrupted. Services will be disrupted on the District line between Richmond and Turnham Green, with limited services between 7:15am and 6.30pm only. There is a planned District line closure due to engineering work on 8 October between Earl’s Court and Wimbledon The central section of the Elizabeth line from Paddington to Abbey Wood will have a normal service of twelve trains per hour until 5:45pm when services will be reduced to six trains per hour. On Sunday 9 October services will start slightly later on the London Overground, and District lines with a good service expected by late morning. There is a planned District line closure due to engineering work between Earl’s Court and Wimbledon, and between Turnham Green and Richmond South Western Railway (SWR) has published details of the planned services it is laying on during the national rail strike on Saturday 8 October. It plans to run a severely reduced service between 7.15am and the early evening with just two trains an hour running between Waterloo and Feltham serving stations such as Wandsworth Town, Putney, Kew Bridge, Brentford, Syon Lane and Isleworth. There will be four trains per hour calling at Waterloo and Woking which will call at Wimbledon. Southern will be running two trains per hour between London Victoria and Epsom Down which will call at Wandsworth Common and Balham. SWR expects disruption to continue into the following day (Sunday 9 October) and is advising passengers only to travel by rail if absolutely necessary on these two days. Trish Ashton, TfL’s Director of Rail and Sponsored Services, said,“Customers will still be able to travel during these strikes using the majority of the TfL network, but we remind them to plan ahead and check before they travel. There is expected to be disruption on some of London’s rail services as part of this strike action with small parts of the Tube also affected, so customers should check the latest status updates ahead of making their journeys.” Based on Glassdoor salary data, the average base pay for a train driver in the UK is £54,001 though drivers working in the south east can be paid more with the average at Great Western £63,410. The union says some of its members have not received a pay rise since 2019. Network Rail says that passenger numbers are down by a fifth since that time making the pay increases requested unaffordable. Network Rail has said it has made an offer worth 8% over two years to RMT members conditional on changes in working practices but the union is continuing to insist on pay rises in line with inflation. The TSSA is also demanding a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies and no changes to terms and conditions which it hasn't agreed to.
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