In an important announcement on Wednesday, train companies are expected to urge citizens to avoid all travel on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays as routes will be drastically reduced. Network Rail is set to set a new timetable, with service cuts of 80 percent, and announce that all trips should be completed by 6.30pm. Southeastern, one of Britain’s largest rail operators, has already written to passengers urging them to avoid traveling on strike days as most of its routes and stations will be closed, while c2c rail will advise passengers to ‘travel only if necessary”. South Western Railway bosses still had “live chats” about their plans Tuesday night, but will likely ask passengers to avoid travel. Similar announcements are expected to be made by other bodies. It will force schools and hospitals to urgently assess how they can continue to operate, at the risk of returning to online courses and canceling non-emergency medical appointments. Industry sources said Tuesday night that the train companies were under substantial pressure from ministers to refrain from issuing “do not travel” notices because Transport Minister Grant Saps “does not want to give in to the unions”. Services are called upon to continue operating where possible. However, sources said: “We should tell them not to travel because if we have people who normally come to stations waiting to get on a train, we will have a big problem.”
“Trains are completely unsafe to move during a strike”
Union sources said the entire network should be closed during the strike for security reasons. They described the proposals even for a 20 per cent service as “optimistic” and said it was “completely unsafe for trains to run” due to the huge number of staff critical to the security on strike.
It comes as thousands more railway workers are set to vote on strikes that could strike in July.
The Personal Transport Employees Association (TSSA) has announced a vote on more than 6,000 Network Rail employees in a dispute over pay, conditions and job security. In case of a positive vote, the strike can take place from July 25.
