Hello, I'm Simon Calder, welcoming you to the Independent Travel Podcast.

Thanks very much for joining me here at Waterloo Station, the busiest station in the UK in normal times.

Indeed, the busiest transport terminal in the whole of Europe before COVID.

I just want to talk about what is happening in terms of the railways this Christmas and New Year

because it is getting a little bit complicated and off-putting.

There's several dynamics at work here, of which the most significant for the most

number of people, is people, staff for the railways going sick or having to isolate because

they've been in contact with somebody who has COVID. The spread of the Omicron variant. The fact that we've had over 100,000

cases positively tested in the UK for the first time shows the scale of the spread of COVID.

And this is having an impact on all walks of life

and in particular on train operators.

So pretty much wherever you are going,

there is the danger that you're going to find

that trains are cancelled.

Now, the way that they're cancelled varies.

For instance, L-N-E-R, which runs on the East Coast Main Line, from London to Yorkshire, North East England and Scotland,

have basically said, we are going to take out a dozen trains a day between Leeds and London,

four trains a day between Lincoln and London,

because that will allow us to run the rest of the trains okay. Other operators are just saying,

check before you travel. We're going to have ad hoc cancellations. So it sounds pretty obvious,

but please don't just turn up.

If your train is cancelled then a couple of things.

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