UK rail passengers are being advised to only travel “if absolutely necessary” as workers go on strike for two 48-hour periods over the next week.
Members of the RMT, TSSA and Unite unions are all due to take industrial action from Tuesday (13 December) in separate disputes over pay, jobs and conditions.
Hopes of a last-minute cancellation of the RMT strikes were dashed on Monday (12 December) when the union's members voted to reject a new pay offer from Network Rail. Union bosses had called the latest proposal from rail bosses "substandard".
Strike action will take place for 48 hours on Tuesday and Wednesday (13-14 December) and then Friday and Saturday (16-17 December), which will cause “severe disruption” across the UK rail network with only 20 per cent of the usual train services set to run. RMT members will also strike from 6pm on 24 December until 6am on 27 December.
As with previous strikes earlier this year, trains will also start later than usual at 7.30am and finish earlier at around 6.30pm on the four strike days. Disruption is also expected on the mornings of both Thursday (15 December) and Sunday (18 December) as services recover from the strikes.
“Passengers should also expect disruption from 18 December until 2 January, with wide variations on service provision, due to an overtime ban across 14 train operating companies imposed by the RMT,” said Network Rail in an update.
“Christmas Eve (24 December) will also see services stop significantly earlier than usual because of further strikes announced by the RMT.”
David Davidson, Network Rail’s interim western route director, added: “I would like to apologise to passengers and urge them to seek alternative ways to travel than by train and for those passengers who must travel by train to expect severe disruption, plan ahead and check the time of your last train home.”
Meanwhile, the leader of the RMT union Mick Lynch has called for an urgent meeting with British prime minister Rishi Sunak after claiming that the government had “torpedoed” the negotiations with Network Rail and train operating companies.
UK rail passengers faced more disruption on Monday morning (12 December) as heavy snow affected some services in London, the south-east and East Anglia.
Network Rail said there were cancelled and delayed trains on some routes due to overnight snowfall, which meant staff had to use snow ploughs to clear tracks and deal with frozen points and signals.