Strikes affect main line tours

THE ongoing issue of strike action over pay is having a knock-on effect on railtours, with several cancelled. The dates for strike action throughout August have caused major disruptions to the national network.

Saturday, August 13 saw drivers from nine companies go on strike, which caused minimal disruption to railtours. However, tours on Saturday, August 20 had the most cancellations as signalling and track maintenance workers planned to strike across 14 companies, involving some 20,000 Network Rail employees. Accordingly, seven of the tours planned for this date by various companies were cancelled,

Union leaders rejected a 4% pay rise offered by Network Rail and are demanding a rise more in line with inflation, which stands at about 10%.