Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me Simon Calder.

It's Thursday the 9th of May, which means that it is the final day in the latest round of

strikes by train drivers belonging to the Aslef Union in the intermably long dispute over pay and working arrangements which has been going on

since July 2022. A good moment then actually to look forward to some positive things which are

happening on the railways and I've come here actually to London Bridge Station which is a bright

and beautiful place compared with the horrible old, uncy old station it used to be. It's also right

next to the shards so very well placed for one of London's top tourist attractions. And there's new stuff that's going to be happening here and in other parts of the UK

when the summer timetables begin.

So the great advantage with the summer timetable is that it gives the train operators

the opportunity to bring in special

kind of seasonal services and that's what's happening with southeastern the main train operator

here they are going to be laying on extra late night weekend services to margate because there will

be lots going on in the evenings.

And so that's going to be happening through from June probably until the 8th of September

when things will quieten down.

There is one thing I need to warn you about coming on here, which is the closure of the Blackheath

tunnel. This is the link between Blackheath and Charlton. Anybody who's used to traveling crew

to North Kent needs to know that it's going to be closing for 10 weeks from the 1st of June

through to the 11th of August, 175 years old,

needing 10 million pounds worth of repairs.

And yes, they could kind of close it over weekends and so on.

They've just decided we're going to go for it.

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