Travel misery set to continue as rail workers plan more walkouts

Overtime ban affects planning

There is no end in sight for the misery suffered by Southern rail passengers caused by strike action over safety concerns on trains.

Rail- users who travel on the line between Ashford and Brighton, which runs across Romney Marsh, have endured weeks of travel chaos.

Southern Rail this week said there was no date for when normal service would resume on the Marshlink line between Ashford and Hastings.

More disruption is expected next week as the latest round of strike action takes place between Monday, January 9 and Saturday, January 14.

Southern says there are plans for a replacement bus service on strike days next week.

Angry passengers have reported unpredictable services with trains being cancelled with next to no notice, replacement buses turning up unannounced and even no service at all on occasions.

Trains were due to run on two non-strike days on December 29 and 30 but “because of train crew availability”, Southern said it had to resort to a bus replacement service.

Stuart Harland, chairman of passenger campaign group MarshLink Action, said: “It’s pretty chaotic and very irritating I’m sure for everyone involved. We’re there to represent the passengers. The government is clearly responsible for this.

“People rely on a train service and you can’t rely on it any more.”

Mr Harland, who lives in Rye and is a former London com- muter from the Sussex town via Ashford, added: “There are people out there who need to be brought in by the government to fully analyse the situation and err on the cautious side and hopefully that will work out there needs to be two persons on board.

“Chris Grayling [the transport secretary] is saying it’s nothing to do with us but it’s they who need to be leading it.

“Who presses the button is irrelevant. It’s about who authorises.

“From our point of view is there should be a second person on board for the safety position of passengers. There needs to be a second person who is not the driver.” Southern says it cannot plan more than a day in advance because the overtime ban means it is not known “what resources are available”.

The operator was also forced to deny suggestions non-union employees at the Eastbourne depot were not being allocated trains.

A spokesman for Southern said: “We have no idea who is and who isn’t a union member. Even if we did that would not influence our methods of operation in any way.

“All we are interested in is making the best use of resources available to use to provide the best possible service for our passengers.”

The spokesman added: “We are running a revised service across most of our network on non-strike days.

“There are trains running between Brighton and Ashford International but a change at Eastbourne.

“We are constantly reviewing what we can provide in the current circumstances, but revised services are likely to prevail while Aslef continues with its overtime ban.

“At least with strikes, there is a finite period or set of periods with start and end dates. With an overtime ban it’s very different. The Aslef drivers’ overtime ban began on December 6 but there is no end date.

“Of course, we are sorry that yet again passengers are having their plans disrupted by what is pointless industrial action, but our door remains open for meaningful talks.”