Train strikes bring Britain to a standstill as people miss funerals and gigs trends now
Britons missed out on funerals and music concerts due to the rail strike today while others were forced onto six-hour coaches to reach their destinations.
Rail passengers suffered further travel chaos because of the action by train drivers, with disruption continuing over the weekend amid long-running pay disputes.
Members of the drivers' union Aslef have walked out today at more than a dozen train operators, causing fresh travel disruption amid long-running disputes over pay.
There were no trains at all today on Avanti West Coast, Chiltern, CrossCountry, East Midlands, Gatwick Express, Great Northern, Heathrow Express, London Northwestern, Northern, Southeastern, Southern, Thameslink or West Midlands.
And while the London Underground was not hit by the strikes, there were severe delays this afternoon on the Hammersmith & City line due to cancellations and the Northern line was part-suspended between Camden Town and High Barnet due to a track obstruction. There were also minor delays on the Circle and Piccadilly lines.
Tomorrow, workers from the Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) will go on strike - the day of the Eurovision Song Contest final in Liverpool. Further Aslef strikes will then be held on May 31 and June 3 - the day of the FA Cup final at Wembley.
Photographs showed empty concourses today at normally-busy stations in London such as King's Cross, Paddington, Charing Cross, Euston and Clapham Junction.
A near-empty concourse at London King's Cross railway station during the strike this morning
Empty platforms at London Paddington railway station this morning on a day of strike action
Clapham Junction in South West London is mostly deserted today during the rail strike
The main departure boards show no trains at London Charing Cross railway station today
An empty concourse is pictured at London Euston station today as the rail strike takes place
Empty areas of Reading station in Berkshire today on another day of rail strike misery
One Twitter user in Nottinghamshire said: 'It's my nephew's funeral today and we can't get there because of the rail strikes.'
How will the latest rail strikes affect each train operator in Britain?
Train services are being hit by more strike action. Members of Aslef and the RMT at train operators will walk out in long-running disputes today and tomorrow respectively. Here is a breakdown of each operator's plan:
- Avanti West Coast
Friday: No trains.
Saturday: Fewer trains than normal will run and only between 7am and 7pm, with the exception of some services to and from Liverpool which is hosting the Eurovision song contest.
- c2c
Friday: Usual timetable.
Saturday: No major impact but all services will run to/from London Fenchurch Street and will not call at London Liverpool Street or Stratford.
- Caledonian Sleeper
Friday: Usual timetable.
Saturday: The Caledonian Sleeper does not operate on Saturday nights.
- Chiltern Railways
Friday: No trains.
Saturday: No trains will run north of Banbury. Services that do run will be limited to one train per hour in both directions between London Marylebone and each of Banbury, Oxford and Aylesbury via Amersham, and only between around 9am and 9pm.
- CrossCountry
Friday: No trains.
Saturday: No direct services will run to or from Birmingham New Street and locations such as Aberdeen, Cambridge, Cardiff, Glasgow, Nottingham and Stansted Airport. Services that do run will only operate between 7am and 7pm.
- East Midlands Railway
Friday: No trains.
Saturday: Services will run between 7am and 7pm. They will be limited to just one train per hour in each direction between London St Pancras and each of Nottingham, Sheffield and Corby, as well as a handful of regional routes such as between Derby and Matlock.
- Elizabeth line
Friday: Usual timetable.
Saturday: The Elizabeth line is not involved in the industrial dispute with the RMT but there will be some alterations to its services. These include no trains between Maidenhead and Reading before 7am or after 7pm.
- Gatwick Express
Friday: No trains.
Saturday: No trains but Southern and Thameslink will serve Gatwick Airport.
- Grand Central
Friday: Usual timetable.
Saturday: Grand Central is not involved in the industrial dispute with the RMT but there will be minor alterations to its services.
- Great Northern
Friday: No trains.
Saturday: A limited service will run and only between 7am and 7pm. There will be no trains between Ely and King's Lynn.
- Great Western Railway
Friday: A limited service will run and only between 7.30am and 6.30pm. The only open routes will be between: London Paddington and Bristol Temple Meads; Reading and Didcot; Reading and Basingstoke; Reading and Redhill; Westbury and Swindon; Cardiff and Bristol; and Plymouth and Gunnislake. The Night Riviera sleeper service has been cancelled.
Saturday: A limited service will run and only between 7.30am and 6.30pm. More routes will be open compared with Friday, including additions such as between London Paddington and Didcot Parkway; London Paddington and Cardiff; Slough and Windsor; and Penzance and Plymouth.
- Greater Anglia
Friday: A reduced service will run and only between London Liverpool Street and each of Cambridge, Norwich, Southend and Stansted Airport.
Saturday: Trains will run between 7am and 11pm. Some routes will have a reduced frequency, but most will have a normal or near normal service.
- Heathrow Express
Friday: No trains.
Saturday: No trains after 9pm.
- Hull Trains
Friday: Usual timetable.
Saturday: Usual timetable.
- London North Eastern Railway (LNER)
Friday and Saturday: A limited timetable will operate and only between London King's Cross and both Edinburgh and Leeds.
- London Northwestern Railway
Friday: No trains.
Saturday: A limited service will run and only between 7am and 7pm. The only open routes will be between Birmingham New Street and each of London Euston, Birmingham International and Liverpool Lime Street.
- London Overground
Friday: Usual timetable.
Saturday: London Overground is not involved in the industrial dispute with the RMT but there will be minor alterations to some of its services.
- Lumo
Friday and Saturday: Usual timetable.
- Merseyrail
Friday and Saturday: No impact from the strikes. Additional services will run due to Eurovision.
- Northern
Friday: No trains.
Saturday: A limited service will run and only between 8am and 5pm. Only a handful of routes will be open, such as between Liverpool Lime Street and Manchester; Leeds and York; and Darlington and Saltburn.
- ScotRail
Friday and Saturday: Usual timetable.
- South Western Railway
Friday: No trains on the Isle of Wight. Services will be reduced between London Waterloo and Exeter, in the Romsey area and on the suburban network.
Saturday: A reduced service will operate and only between 7am and 7pm. The only open routes will be between London Waterloo and each of Windsor via Hounslow; Windsor via Richmond; Woking; and Basingstoke; between Basingstoke and Salisbury; and on the Isle of Wight
- Southeastern
Friday: No trains.
Saturday: A reduced service will operate, with only 58 out of 180 stations open. Trains that do run will be busier than normal, and services are likely to start later and finish earlier than usual.
- Southern
Friday: No trains.
Saturday: A reduced service will operate. No trains will run between Hemel Hempstead and Clapham Junction; London Bridge and Norwood Junction; Southampton Central and Barnham; and Eastbourne and Ashford International.
- Stansted Express
Friday: Frequencies will be halved to one train per hour in each direction.
Saturday: Frequencies will be halved to one per hour in each direction, and trains will start later and finish earlier than normal.
- Thameslink
Friday: No trains.
Saturday: Services will be split north and south, with nothing running between London St Pancras and London Blackfriars.
- TransPennine Express
Friday: No trains.
Saturday: A reduced timetable will operate and only between Liverpool Lime Street and each of Huddersfield, Preston and Sheffield, and between Sheffield and Cleethorpes.
- Transport for Wales
Friday: Usual timetable.
Saturday: Transport for Wales is not involved in the industrial dispute with the RMT but some of its services will be disrupted.
West Midlands Railway
Friday: No trains.
Saturday: A limited service will run and only between 7am and 7pm.
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Another wrote: It really sucks when I plan to see one of my favorite artists perform in Brighton (the girlboss @maisiehpeters) and bought the ticket in January only for all rail transport to not be running at all the day of the concert. £30 wasted and I'm not seeing Maisie.'
And a third from London said: 'Not envying my daughter having to make a six-hour bus journey to get to Eurovision #railstrike'.
A fourth, Bethan Kelly, tweeted: 'There are no hire cars in the whole of London. Ideas how I can get home to Manchester tonight! #railstrike.'
Aslef's general secretary, Mick Whelan, revealed there had been no meetings with the Government since January 6 despite continuing deadlock over the pay row.
He said that drivers were prepared to continue taking industrial action until they had a decent pay offer. Aslef has described an offer of an 8 per cent wage rise over two years as 'risible'.
Mr Whelan, who joined picket lines in Manchester and Liverpool, said: 'The Government seems to think they can starve us back to work, or that we will give up, but that isn't going to happen. We are in this for the long haul and there will be more strikes.'
Mr Whelan accused train operators, and the Government, of trying to take away hard-won terms and conditions in return for a 'miserable' below-inflation pay rise for drivers who have not had a wage increase for four years.
The Rail Delivery Group said that after many weeks of negotiations with the Aslef leadership it had made a 'revised and fair offer' including a pay rise of 8 per cent over two years.
Earlier, BBC presenter Nick Robinson gave Mr Whelan a grilling this morning over his claims that the timing of rail strikes were a 'coincidence'.
This morning, Mr Robinson spoke to Mr Whelan on Radio 4's Today programme and said he had previously claimed it 'was a coincidence that these strikes coincide with the need of tens of thousands of people to head to Liverpool for the Eurovision final'.
Mr Whelan replied: 'Well yes, strangely enough, I don't really watch Eurovision, believe it or not, I didn't even know they had semi-finals.
'What happened to us was a direct reaction to that non-deal that came out, and under the legislation we have to give 14 days' notice and the first available day after 14 days was today, unfortunately. If we were targeting Eurovision we would have done the Friday, Saturday and the Sunday.'
But Mr Robinson said: 'As I've already pointed out to you this strike and the one coming tomorrow are disrupting transport all over the weekend. There's also a strike planned by Aslef for Saturday, June 3.
'Is it also a coincidence that that is the day of the FA Cup final when tens of thousands of supporters of two Manchester clubs will need to travel to London?'
Mr Whelan - was born to Irish parents in Paddington in 1960 and is married to retired biomedical scientist Lorraine Phelan MBE - then said in response: 'I'll make two brief points on this one. Network Rail shut down the whole of the West Coast last year on cup final day deliberately, and engineering work…'
But Mr Robinson then interrupted him, saying: 'But I'm asking you about your decisions, not theirs.'
Mr Whelan continued: '… But nobody makes a comment. When we spread out our strikes, so we spread across our rest day patterns and rostering processes so you hope that the same people don't get down twice on strike days, it's coincidental.
'If somebody can name me a day when there's not an event going on in the UK that isn't going to get hit at some point if there's any form of disruption, I'd love to know it.'
Mr Robinson pressed him, saying: 'Well my question was is it coincidental, and I think the answer is no, you targeted the FA Cup?'
But Mr Whelan replied: 'It's coincidental. We just spread the pain on our members over a period of time based on their rest day patterns.'
Mr Robinson then thanked Mr Whelan for his time and ended the interview.
Earlier in the interview, Mr Whelan also blamed 'companies in league with the Government'
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