Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder coming from a very busy cafe in a very busy Leeds station, one of the most important rail stations outside London in terms of numbers of passengers.

However, this place, like many others around the UK, will be closed

pretty much completely on the 16th of March for the day of the next strikes. And since it's

the 1st of March, happy St David's Day, and we know what strikes will be happening between now

and a month's time,

the first of April. I thought I should mark your card about what you can expect if you're

travelling around by train. Well, the good news is that if you want to make the most of

travelling in a fairly undisturbed sort of way, well, the next two weeks are

going to be terrific. There will not be any more official strikes on the railways because by definition

the unions have to give at least two weeks notice. So up to and including the 14th of March you should find things plain sailing to the

extent that they ever are on a rather shambolic rail network which doesn't get perhaps the care and

attention it deserves. Things start to change on the 15th of March. Now this is going to affect people mostly in the London area

because we now know that the RMT union as well as the Aslef Drivers Union

will be striking the London Underground on Wednesday the 15th of March in a dispute over job security, over pensions

and over working arrangements. They say that the Transport for London, the company which

employs them, is trying to impose cuts. The unions say they shouldn't be imposing cuts. They should be simply

asking the government for more money. Transport for London says we're just desperately trying

to get the underground to be a better place to work and make the revenue a bit sustainable. I mean like the national rail,

which I'll come on to in a minute. The big problem is since COVID revenue has collapsed

because people are simply not commuting in the numbers that they were. So, a really good day, budget day, 15th of March, not to be trying to travel around London.

But then towards evening we'll also start getting the first cancellations of the strike which then is taking place on the 16th of March.

This is really going to be the big one. So a really good day

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