Northern rail services to be hit by fresh wave of strikes
NEARLY HALF of Northern rail services will have to be cancelled when a fresh wave of strikes begins next week.
Members of the RMT union at Northern, South Western Railway, Greater Anglia, Merseyrail and the Isle of Wight’s Island Line will walk out on January 8, 10 and 12 in the long-running dispute over the role of guards, while those on Southern will strike on January 8.
Northern expects to run about 1,350 services each day, more than 50 per cent of its normal timetable.
Most will run between 7am and 7pm and services are expected to be “extremely busy” as people return to work and school after the Christmas break. Replacement bus services will run on routes where trains are not available.
Sharon Keith, regional director at Northern, said: “We are doing all we can to keep our customers on the move and are focussing on running as many trains as possible between 7am and 7pm to get people to work and home again. Between these hours we will run more than 60 per cent of our normal weekday timetable.”
The RMT’s general secretary Mick Cash blamed the rail operator’s “intransigence” for the strikes going ahead, saying it was maintaining pre-conditions that the union had to accept “drivercontrolled operation and a future where at least half of Northern trains run without a second safety-critical member of staff on board”.
Ms Keith said Northern was prepared “to guarantee jobs and pay for conductors for the next eight years if we can reach an agreement with RMT on how our colleagues can deliver better customer service”.