Travellers warned of rail strike chaos
COMMUTERS across Birmingham and the West Midlands are facing major disruption next week as union members plan a series of rail strikes.
Staff at Network Rail and 13 different operators have all announced they are set to take part in the planned strike action while even those not in dispute, such as Transport for Wales, are warning of cancelled or disrupted services.
Among those set to be disrupted are ones operated by West Midlands Railway (WMR) which runs the busy Cross City commuter route from north Worcestershire to Lichfield via Longbridge, Birmingham New Street and Sutton Coldfield.
The industrial action is set to be held by members of the RMT union on Tuesday 21, Thursday 23 and Saturday June 25 but services on other days are also expected to be impacted.
Railway workers are walking out in a growing dispute over pay, jobs and pensions with around 80 per cent of the UK network said to be affected.
WMR said it would have a “very limited” number of services on those three days, with passengers urged to travel only if essential. Those services which do run will do so between 7.30am and 6.30pm to allow freight to continue.
A “significantly reduced” service will also operate on Wednesday 22 and Friday 24 as the strike action will impact the usual operation of the railway. On these days, services will commence at 7.30am with last trains earlier than usual. The following routes are affected:
Cross City Line: Two trains per hour
Wolverhampton to Birmingham: One train per hour
New Street to Birmingham International: One train per hour
No trains will run on any other WMR route, including all via Birmingham Snow Hill, Birmingham to Shrewsbury, Birmingham to Worcester/Hereford and Nuneaton to Leamington Spa.
Jonny Wiseman, West Midlands Railway’s customer experience director, said: “It is very disappointing that this planned strike action by the RMT is set to cause significant disruption to our passengers. We will be operating a very limited service all through the week and we are asking customers to only travel with us if their journey is essential and no other transport option is available to them.
“Passengers holding tickets or season tickets will be entitled to refunds and should visit our website for information.”
The affected list of operators also includes Chiltern Railways which runs services between Birmingham Moor Street, Solihull, Warwick and London Marylebone.
It said it would have “a heavily reduced timetable” even on nonstrike days while engineering work meant that no Chiltern
Railways services north of Dorridge would be in operation on Monday 20.
Also affected is Avanti West Coast which runs the main service between London Euston and Scotland via Coventry, Birmingham International, New Street, the Black Country and Staffordshire. It said there would be fewer trains running.
Anyone with tickets for travel from Tuesday to Sunday can also use them between now and Monday 27 or claim back a refund.