Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder. It's Tuesday the 30th

of January, which means that the first rail strikes of 2024 are now underway. The train

drivers union Aslef, which has been in a long and very bitter

dispute with 14 train operators in England, is conducting a sequence of rolling strikes

over the next week, which will see train companies stopping work in different parts of the country,

which is mostly going to be affecting England, but also stretching into Scotland or Wales,

not having any impact on Northern Ireland, where the overnight news about possibly restoring power sharing signifies possibly

an end to the transport strikes there. But let's stick with Great Britain if we may and

what is happening. So today people who rely on Southwestern Railway,

southeastern, then Southern, Gatwick Express, Great Northern,

and Thameslink will find either zero or very few trains running.

Now, this is absolutely critical because they, between them,

carry roughly 40% of all the rail travellers in the UK.

South Western covers south-west London, Surrey, Hampshire, going into Dorset and Devon.

South-eastern is Kent, mostly south east London into central London, and then

Southern Gawick Express, great northern Thameslink cover all the rest of the south along with lines

going to places like Cambridge and Peterborough.

So very, very messy.

And the idea is that, well, the train drivers hope that all trains will be stopped.

In fact, that's not going to happen.

However, it's very easy for me to tell you what's running on Southwestern Railway.

You can go to Basingstoke,

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