Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder, another day,

another railway station, another strike call. How long can this go on? I'm looking back to the

summer of 2022.

What a distant memory it was.

We were all so young then.

But that was when National Rail Strikes began first in June with the RMT Union.

They finally appear to be getting somewhere close to a settlement, although there's still no

absolute definite about that. And then in July, the Aslef Union joined in. Asleff are the train

drivers union. Very powerful. They've done extremely well for their members over the past

25 or 30 years since privatisation, basically by playing each train operator off against the other.

So fantastic work there. Average salary, 60,000 pounds a year without overtime for a four-day week.

Rest day working can be upwards of 500 pounds sometimes if you are prepared to work overtime.

And yet, they are very unhappy about the offer made by 14 train operators.

These are specifically those that are controlled by the UK government and represented by the rail delivery group.

And they include all the big intercity operators, Avanti, Cross Country, East Midlands Railway, Great Western Railway, LNERR, Transpenine Express,

all the big Southeast England commuter operators, Greater Anglia, GTR, which includes Gatwick Express,

Great Northern, Southern Thames League, Southeastern, south-eastern, south-western railway,

and then finally the operators who focus on the Midlands and the north of England.

That's Chiltern, Northern West Midlands Railway.

And it doesn't include the open access operators.

That's people like Lumo, Hull trains and Grand Central on the East Coast

Main Line. It doesn't include ScotRail, Transport for Wales, Transport for London, including the

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