Dates of train strikes in January and February: All the information you need about potential disruptions.

The ongoing conflict between Aslef, the union representing train drivers, and 14 train companies in England has now lasted for three years.

The union has declared its initial strikes for 2024 due to the ongoing disagreement over compensation and work conditions, with no resolution in sight.

Aslef-affiliated train operators will engage in a week-long strike, starting on Tuesday, January 30th and ending on Monday, February 5th. It is expected that numerous trains will be suspended each day during this period.

The impact will worsen due to a nine-day prohibition on working overtime from January 29th to February 6th.

However, a distinct strike lasting five days organized by Aslef and targeting LNER from February 5th to 9th has been cancelled. A representative for the train company stated: “We are pleased to hear that the possibility of prolonged disturbances to our services has been resolved.”

“We urge Aslef to collaborate with us in finding a resolution to this ongoing disagreement, as it negatively impacts the railway industry.”

Here are the primary inquiries and responses.

Aslef is currently at odds with the train operators who have been contracted by the government to offer rail services.

Intercity operators:

London commuter operators:

Operators specializing in the regions of the Midlands and northern England.

ScotRail, Transport for Wales, Transport for London (specifically the Elizabeth Line), Merseyrail, and independent operators like Grand Central, Hull Trains, and Lumo will not be affected. However, their routes may experience high levels of congestion due to the strikes.

On Monday, January 29th, the implementation of an overtime ban will commence.

On Tuesday, January 30th, South Western Railway, Southeastern, and GTR (Southern, Gatwick Express, Great Northern, and Thameslink) will be affected.

On Wednesday, January 31st, Northern and TransPennine Express services will be operating.

On Thursday, February 1st, there will be no strike, however, the overtime ban will still be in effect.

On Friday, February 2nd, there will be strikes on Greater Anglia, C2C, and LNER. LNER will also have an additional strike the following week.

On Saturday, February 3rd, West Midlands Trains, Avanti West Coast, and East Midlands Railway will be in operation.

There will be no strike on Sunday, February 4th, but the overtime ban will still be in effect.

On Monday, February 5th, Great Western, CrossCountry, and Chiltern all have services running. The LNER strike will start and continue until February 9th.

On Tuesday, February 6th, there will be no strike, but the ban on overtime will continue for one more day.

Using past rolling strikes as a basis, we can anticipate the following outcomes – assuming that the transport secretary, Mark Harper, does not implement a “minimum service level” plan.

These predictions are derived from The Independent’s analysis of past strikes and should be verified with each specific railway company.

On January 30th, there will be no train services on the Great Northern Line.

On January 30th, there will be no train services for Thameslink.

No train service on January 30 in the Southeastern region.

On January 30th, there will only be a continuous shuttle service running between London Victoria and Gatwick airport from 6am to 11:30pm on Southern trains.

On January 30th, the Gatwick Express service will not be running. However, the Southern airport shuttle will still be available for transportation.

On January 30th, South Western Railway will offer a main service consisting of four trains per hour from London Waterloo to Woking. One of these trains will also go to Guildford and Basingstoke every hour. Additionally, there will be a shuttle from Basingstoke to Salisbury. Trains will also travel between Waterloo and Feltham, passing through Richmond and Twickenham. There will be no trains operating on the Isle of Wight.

On January 31st, there will be no train service.

There will be no train service on TransPennine Express on January 31st.

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On February 2nd, there will be no train service on the C2C line.

On February 2nd, Greater Anglia will have a restricted schedule connecting London Liverpool Street to Norwich, Ipswich, Colchester, Southend Victoria, Cambridge, and Stansted airport.

On February 2nd, LNER will have consistent trains operating on main routes connecting London King’s Cross to Leeds, York, Newcastle, and Edinburgh.

There will be no trains on February 3rd for Avanti West Coast. The operator may stress that services on the days before and after the strike will also experience disruptions.

On February 3rd, East Midlands Railway announced that there would be no train services. This is not the first time the company has advised against travel, stating that there will be no alternative bus services available.

There will be no train services provided by West Midlands Railway on February 3rd.

There will be no trains running on February 5th in Chiltern.

There will be no train service on CrossCountry on February 5th.

On February 5th, Great Western Railway will operate a basic route from London Paddington to Oxford, Bath, and Bristol, with a connection from Bristol to Cardiff. There will be a limited service on smaller lines in Devon and Cornwall. The Night Riviera sleeper train from London to Penzance will not run for several nights. The Heathrow Express may also be impacted, with a reduced schedule from 7am to 7pm.

Aside from the disturbance during strike days, trains on consecutive days may experience changes. During these days, there is a high possibility of heavy traffic due to travelers rescheduling their trips to avoid the strike.

The new law permits the transportation secretary to require a minimum of 40% of the regular service to be provided on days when there is a strike.

To the best of The Independent’s knowledge, no train company is attempting to enforce the new legislation on the union representing train drivers.

The Transport Select Committee has previously warned of potential unintended consequences of the legislation. The Conservative chair, Iain Stewart, said: “There is a risk of MSLs worsening worker-employer relations and that, as a result, MSLs could end up making services less reliable.”

Monday 29 January will have the greatest impact on passengers in terms of sheer numbers. The target demographic is commuters in southeast England, most of whom rely on the affected train companies.

Travelers going between cities will face the most inconvenience on Friday 2 and Saturday 3 February due to disruptions on major train lines such as the East Coast, West Coast, and Midland mainlines.

The day of Sunday, February 4th, may experience major disruptions due to the prohibition of working on rest days, as well as scheduled maintenance on the West Coast main line between Birmingham and Wolverhampton, and on the East Coast main line between London King’s Cross and Stevenage.

The minimum standards for service do not pertain to union restrictions on working on days off without a contract.

The sole implementation of the overtime ban will result in numerous cancellations. Aslef claims that no train company has a sufficient number of drivers to fulfill their commitment to passengers and businesses without requiring drivers to work on their scheduled days off.

During the Aslef overtime ban from December 1 to 9, 2023, passengers are advised that trains may experience unexpected changes or cancellations.

Multiple railway companies preemptively cancelled services due to the previous overtime ban, as listed below:

On weekends, there will be a significant decrease in train service and there will also be fewer trains running on weekdays.

Chiltern Railway is currently operating a significantly reduced service on most of its routes, and some branch lines have no trains running at all. Additionally, all services on every route will end earlier than usual.

Gatwick Express services will not be available during the overtime ban. Instead, Southern trains will operate between London Victoria and Gatwick airport during the industrial action.

The branch lines connecting Bletchley and Bedford, Watford Junction and St Albans Abbey, and Leamington Spa and Nuneaton will be closed on most or all days for London Northwestern Railway and West Midlands Railway.

The revised schedule will have fewer services and some may start and end earlier than usual.

Thameslink issued a warning stating that a modified timetable with reduced frequency will be implemented.

Numerous trains were canceled on the initial day, such as the South Western Railway service from London Waterloo to Southampton, Great Western Railway’s route from London Paddington to Weston-super-Mare via Bristol and Carmarthen through Cardiff and Swansea, and TransPennine Express connections from Manchester and Newcastle to Edinburgh. Additionally, several Manchester-Leeds-Hull services were affected.

Many train operators still do not include Sunday as part of their working week, which means that the ban on rest-day working will cause significant disruptions on February 4th.

Certain stations may have restrictions on boarding or exiting trains in order to prevent overcrowding.

Once more, these are forecasts derived from previous occurrences.

The Elizabeth Line and the Tube ensured constant access to London Heathrow.

On Tuesday, January 30th, the first day of strikes, passengers traveling through London Gatwick will experience major disruptions as all Gatwick and Thameslink trains are expected to stop running. However, those traveling between London, Gatwick, and Brighton will still have access to a decent amount of trains.

On Tuesday, December 5th, London Stansted had a limited hourly service from the main city. The rest of the days during the overtime ban had changes to their services.

On January 30, during the Thameslink strike, Luton airport will still be reachable by train from London. The East Midlands Railway line will still be in service. On February 3, when the East Midlands Railway is not expected to operate, Thameslink will be available for transportation to Luton airport.

It is probable that Birmingham airport will not be reachable by train, except for those taking Transport for Wales from Birmingham New Street, on Saturday, February 3rd.

On Wednesday, January 31st, Manchester airport will most likely not be accessible by train, except for a once-per-hour connection through Transport for Wales to and from central Manchester, Chester, and North Wales.

On strike days, there may be challenges with connecting journeys between London St Pancras International and Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam, but regular train services will still operate. Tuesday, January 30th will be especially difficult as Thameslink and Southeastern trains will not be running, and Saturday, February 3rd may also be affected as there is a possibility that no East Midlands Railway services will be in operation.

According to the most recent issue of the Aslef Journal, Mick Whelan, the general secretary, informed members that train drivers are feeling tired and annoyed with their employers for not negotiating in an honest and fair manner. The Rail Delivery Group presented a proposal that they knew would be rejected.

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ASLEF members, who are essential workers that kept our country functioning during the pandemic, are requesting a reasonable and respectable agreement.

“We have not met with the transport secretary, Mark Harper, since December 2022. Our last meeting with the rail minister, Huw Merriman, was in January. We have not received any updates from the employers since April.”

“We have consistently stated our willingness to negotiate, however, it is important for the government and TOCs to realize that this conflict cannot be resolved by pressuring our members to accept unfavorable terms and conditions of employment.”

The Rail Delivery Group’s spokesperson stated that strikes have negative effects on both individuals and their means of income. These strikes are especially hard to defend when taxpayers are already providing an additional £54 million per week to support post-Covid operations.

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“The railway is facing a significant financial obstacle, but a proposal has been made to increase drivers’ base salaries to almost £65,000 for a four-day work week without overtime. This amount is well above the national average and considerably more than what many of our passengers, who cannot work from home, earn.”

We urge the Aslef leaders to collaborate with us in finding a solution to this conflict instead of resorting to further detrimental strikes. Let us come to a fair agreement that benefits our employees and implements necessary improvements for better service reliability.

A representative from the Department for Transport expressed disappointment in Aslef’s ongoing focus on disrupting the travel of individuals commuting to work, school, or important medical appointments via train.

Currently, Aslf is the sole rail union that persists with their strike without presenting a just and acceptable proposition to their members. The available offer would raise the average train driver’s salary to £65,000.

As an alternative, the Aslef leadership should allow their members to make their own choices about their future, rather than making those choices for them.

The Labour Party’s shadow minister for rail, Stephen Morgan MP, stated that they plan to return the railways to public ownership and prioritize the needs of passengers as contracts come to an end.

Source: independent.co.uk