December 23rd - Christmas Travel News Across Roads, Rail And Air
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 23 December 2021
⏱️ 6 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As we approach Christmas Eve, I take a look at the state of play across roads, rail and air travel as those of us not isolating try to make our way to family and friends for Christmas. The railways are currently the most disrupted, with last minute cancellations due to coronavirus cases and looming railworks meaning it might be better to get away sooner rather than later.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Simon Calder, welcoming you to today's travel podcast on the eve of Christmas Eve. |
| 0:10.1 | And today I want to talk about the travel issues you might be facing if in the next 24 hours you are driving or taking a train or flying home or away for Christmas. Well, it's been |
| 0:26.7 | quite a day so far. We've seen a lot of COVID-related problems in particular on the railways. |
| 0:35.3 | Here's what's happening. An awful lot of train crew, I'm sorry to say, have either contracted COVID or they are in the position of having to isolate because loved ones, people they're close to, have the virus. As a result of that, there simply aren't enough crew available and we are seeing all kinds of cancellations on the railways. |
| 0:59.6 | LNER on the East Coast mainline is actually cutting a dozen trains between Leeds and London every day and four between Lincoln and London simply to make room for the |
| 1:15.6 | fact that they're going to have fewer train crew available. |
| 1:18.6 | London North Western they've cut the links from St Jolvins to Watford and from Bedford to Bletchley |
| 1:26.6 | again to make crew available. |
| 1:29.9 | And pretty much every train operator is doing the same. |
| 1:34.9 | Thameslink have actually said, yeah, we've got a bit of COVID. |
| 1:39.0 | We've got seasonal illnesses, which we normally get in winter. |
| 1:42.9 | We've also got side effects of the booster jabs, |
| 1:47.9 | which I'm sorry to say, some anti-vaxxers have actually just seized onto, |
| 1:54.1 | and they're now saying, well, we told you there were problems with it. |
| 1:57.6 | Please do not take any notice of that. |
| 2:03.6 | If you are offered a booster, please take it, |
| 2:10.4 | do yourself, your loved ones and the rest of us a favour. If you're travelling on the rails tomorrow, |
| 2:15.2 | well, there's a couple of things to bear in mind. First of all, the excellent cross-country trains network is going to be in considerable disarray. |
| 2:19.4 | What we've got is, unfortunately, a strike by members of the RMT Union over the role of guards. |
| 2:28.4 | This is a familiar territory for anybody who's been travelling in the past decade on Scott Rail, on of course, |
| 2:36.6 | southwestern railways on northern. It's a fairly familiar thing that happens at all these train |
| 2:46.1 | operators, but for there to be a strike on Christmas Eve and indeed on New Year's Eve, there's another one then, |
... |
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