Hello, I'm Simon Calder, welcoming you to my independent travel podcast, bringing you the latest news on travelling, or if you're in the London area, perhaps not travelling.

I am speaking to you from a tube train. Yes, there are just a handful running today, and I'm on one which is going, it says,

from High Street, Kensington, which if you're not familiar with London, is a stop just west of the

centre of the city, through to Wimbledon in south-west London.

It's very, very uncrowded.

I'm looking pretty much the whole length of the train and there might be 30, 40 of us.

Normally you would expect hundreds of people.

It's just after 4pm and pretty much the height of the rush hour. It's a really

unusual service pattern because normally these trains start back at Edgware Road and they

come down via Paddington Station and then run through to Earl's Court and Wimbledon.

But we've been told by the driver of this train that it will not be stopping at Earl's Court,

which normally is a really important junction, where the Piccadilly line and various district tube lines all meet.

I presume it's not stopping because, well, you have a whole load of passengers there wandering off trying to get onto the Piccadilly line, etc.

There's also some trains running from High Street, Kensington to Ealing Broadway. Most definitely not a usual route, but perfectly possible.

And on the other end of the district line, I understand they're going from West Ham to Upminster.

And there's a few trains running on the outer stretches of the central line as well.

But I'm afraid that seems to be more or less it.

Now, this is causing clearly mayhem for millions of people who would like to be travelling

around London.

So I wanted to talk about what the strike is about.

It's been called by members of the R&T union.

They are unhappy about three things, which really all have their route in the same issue,

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