Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder. It's Monday the 17th of July and it's the start of a new week. And it coincides with a resumption of industrial action on the railways of England with a little bit of impact on Scotland and Wales as well. Let me tell you what is happening. The Aslef

Train Drivers Union has introduced another overtime ban. That is going to continue until Saturday,

the 22nd of July. Now, almost all train operators rely on some drivers working on their rest days in order

to run the scheduled service. If those drivers are declining to work over time, which is entirely,

of course, their option, then that means there will be some cancellations. Most of the train operators say,

actually, we think we're going to be all right, but there could be short notice cancellations,

but there are two really significant exceptions to that, and they are effectively Southeast England

commuter services. I'm speaking to you from London Waterloo, where there will be

cancellations of a number of trains all week due to this, and you do need to check

before you assume that your usual train will be running. Same applies on the Southern network, which is basically from London,

Victoria, down to the Sussex Coast via Gatwick Airport, and the Gatwick Express isn't running

this week, but you will get alternative services on Southern. Now, it gets worse on Thursday and

Saturday because the RMT union is taking two more

days of industrial action in the form of a strike as opposed to action short of a strike,

which is what the train drivers are doing. And that is going to affect all the train operators who are contracted

by the department for transport so that doesn't include for example transport for Wales

Scott rail Mersey rail then the open access operations as they're called Lumo Hull trains Grand Central doesn't affect the Heathrow Express

although actually this morning there are problems because of a bridge strike at Handwell so watch out for that

but if you're travelling in England then there are going to be serious problems, a much reduced service on southeastern to southeast London and Kent.

On southern, there will be limited service with trains to Gatwick Airport and Brighton and to some other destinations.

But crucially, as with all strike days, there will be limited hours, typically about 7 in the

morning to 7 at night.

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