Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder. It is Monday the 15th of

January and that means, well, with the announcement just now in the past few minutes that the

strikes on Britain's railways are into their third calendar year. Yes, this is the

dispute between Aslef, the train drivers union and the 14 train operators whose work is

controlled by the Department for Transport. In other words, the government subsidises the operators and tells them

what trains they should run. The root of the dispute is Asleff wanting a fair, a decent pay rise

for its members that does not come with any strings attached and the government through the train operators

who are represented by the rail delivery group insisting that any pay rise, even a modest

one is going to be contingent on wide-ranging reforms.

The train driver's union says this is completely unacceptable.

They've just had a new ballot for their members on industrial action and that has been emphatically endorsed.

And so, well, if you are kind enough to be a regular listener and perhaps a reader of the independent, you might

have heard me with some glee saying, well, the executive committee of Aslef was meeting last

week and they didn't call any strikes so therefore I think we can rest easy. Well, no, it's all

come out today. And it's effectively a mirror image of what they did in December, but in 2022.

And that is a nine-day overtime ban.

That's going to be taking us from the 29th of January through to the 6th of February inclusive.

That's going to be very, very damaging,

particularly on Sunday the 4th of February, because that is the Sunday and many train companies

still do not have that as part of the working week. So everything is based on overtime.

And if there's an overtime ban for drivers, that means you're not going to get any trains.

But there's also a series of rolling strikes, region by region.

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