April 23rd - Continuing Rail strikes: what it means for UK commuters
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 23 April 2024
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Join me, Simon Calder, as I explore the persistent rail strikes impacting the UK's train services. In this episode, I'll delve into the Aslef Union's ongoing dispute with the government over pay and working conditions, which has now extended into a third summer.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder. Thursday the 23rd of April, happy St George's Day, happy Shakespeare's birthday, unhappy rail strikes, because late yesterday, well, another strike was announced by train drivers belonging to |
| 0:24.4 | the Aslef Union. Yes, they are now going to be moving into a third summer. This is the dispute |
| 0:32.6 | over pay and more particularly working arrangements that has dragged on since the summer of 2022, |
| 0:40.6 | and we now know that there will be thousands of trains halted on the 7th, the 8th and the 9th of May, |
| 0:47.8 | 24. That's a Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and the target very clearly is commuters who would normally work on a Tuesday, |
| 0:57.6 | Wednesday and Thursday. The strikes will affect the 14 rail firms in England that are controlled |
| 1:05.6 | by the UK government and represented in the negotiations, such as they are, by the Rail Delivery Group. |
| 1:14.2 | The negotiations themselves just coming up for their first birthday since they last took place. |
| 1:21.3 | That was the 26th of April last year. |
| 1:25.0 | Since then, all we've had is strikes, strikes and more strikes. And the pattern that |
| 1:31.9 | we've now settled into is that train drivers belonging to Aslef will go on rolling strikes |
| 1:39.1 | across the country. And that's exactly what is happening on these three days. Tuesday, the 7th of May. |
| 1:48.2 | You've got most of the London area commuter networks will be striking. C2C, they'll cancel pretty much all trains. |
| 1:57.8 | Greater Anglia, they'll have a skeleton service, as will Great Northern, Thameslink, |
| 2:03.0 | southeastern, southern, southwestern railway. Gatwick Express won't be running throughout. |
| 2:10.0 | There's also, by the way, an overtime ban from Monday the 6th to Saturday, the 11th of May, |
| 2:15.6 | which is going to knock out some more trains. |
| 2:18.5 | On Wednesday it's the turn of most intercity countries, companies, and that is going to involve |
| 2:27.3 | Avanti West Coast, East Midlands Railway, Great Western Railway, Cross Country and also |
| 2:32.7 | Chiltern, who run between London and Birmingham, do |
| 2:36.0 | lots around the Midlands and also West Midlands Railways. |
| 2:41.2 | Come Thursday the 9th of May, it's, well, I think picking up the rest. It's mostly the East |
... |
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