July 15th - Rail strife: expect a long, hot summer of discontent, train travellers
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 15 July 2022
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It could be a very tricky summer to navigate Britain's rail systems, even when temperatures aren't hitting record levels. A host of rail unions have announced their strike dates after the RMT union staged their first walkouts in June. It will mean lots of disruption across Britain's network - here I run you through what's happening and what it's likely to do for passengers.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the final independent travel podcast of the week with me Simon Calder. |
| 0:07.9 | And I'm talking to you from beautiful Paddington Basin. This is the lovely canal side area |
| 0:14.6 | that's just a few steps from Paddington Station. And certainly if you happen to have a long wait |
| 0:20.6 | before a train, it's well |
| 0:22.5 | worth coming out here, plenty of places to eat, drink and watch the maritime world go by. |
| 0:30.1 | And I fear you may have quite a lot of time to spend a bit of time watching the boats go by because of course we are now looking |
| 0:41.2 | at a world once again in which there are many many rail strikes yesterday we heard that the drivers |
| 0:51.6 | union asleff had voted well they voted overwhelmingly at eight train operators to strike |
| 0:57.4 | they have now decided that they are going to go on strike on the 30th of uh July that's a |
| 1:05.6 | Saturday and I think that's really significant because the rail workers have thought, well, we want to go on strike when we do the most damage, of course, and that's absolutely understandable. |
| 1:20.9 | And they've decided that that's now going to be at the weekend. |
| 1:24.1 | So that's why the train drivers have gone for Saturday the 30th. |
| 1:27.3 | Remember, we've already got a |
| 1:28.9 | strike coming up on the 27th of july but on top of that which will be the fourth day of national |
| 1:36.4 | rail strikes this summer the rmt very significantly last night said yeah and we're now going to have a strike on the 18th, |
| 1:46.1 | that's the Thursday and the 20th, that's the Saturday of August. |
| 1:50.8 | And they are doing that because they recognise that since COVID, |
| 1:55.7 | commuters are not the most significant portion of the rail travelling public, it's actually leisure travellers. |
| 2:05.5 | And what better they would see in order to further their aims for protecting their jobs, |
| 2:11.6 | for protecting their terms and conditions, and for seeking a pay rise that will match the inflation rate, what better than |
| 2:21.3 | to strike at a time when people are going off on day trips or going off on holidays. |
| 2:28.8 | Now, of course, we are a month, over a month away from those strike dates, but I just want to sound a warning, |
... |
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