Services cut to four trains a day on major rail routes

Passengers have 90pc less choice on some main lines during strikes despite pledge they will get priority

SOME major rail routes will be running just four trains a day next week as the largest strike in 30 years brings the transport network to a near standstill.

Passengers hoping to travel from London to Glasgow will see a 77 per cent reduction in choice on Tuesday. On a typical day, they would have 17 times to choose from but this will fall to just four. The last train will depart at 1.30pm.

Network Rail published its amended timetable in the run-up to widespread strike action next week. Large parts of the country will be without any rail services on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday when 40,000 RMT members walk out in a dispute over pay and jobs.

Lines will be open from 7.30am and journeys will have to be completed by 6.30pm, meaning services will start later and finish earlier than usual. Network Rail confirmed on Wednesday that about half of all routes would have to close and that services would be slashed by 80 per cent.

It said that main lines will be given priority. However, some major routes will have no trains running at all and others will see a drop of more than 90 per cent.

A Daily Telegraph analysis shows that the number of trains from London to Birmingham will fall from 82 a day to just eight on Tuesday, while London to Bournemouth has no trains running at all. Passengers would normally have 38 trains to choose from if travelling from London to Bournemouth.

Any passengers determined to travel to Bournemouth via train would need to wait for nearly four hours at Reading on Tuesday evening to catch a rare connecting train.

Alongside the major routes from London, there will be no services to Penzance, Swansea, Holyhead, Chester and Blackpool, as well as no trains running north through Scotland from Glasgow or Edinburgh.

The last train from Edinburgh to London will depart at 12.30pm, with the final departure from Leeds to the capital is at 3.45pm.

For those planning trips to Manchester, the number of trains on offer on Tuesday has fallen by 80 per cent to just eight. This is down from 39 and the last train from London will depart at 3.40pm. The number of trains to Bristol has fallen by 70 per cent to just 10. This is down from 34 and the last train will leave London at 16.33pm.

The number of trains departing Leeds will also be down 75 per cent on a normal Tuesday from 32 to just eight.

Of the 2,118 stations not managed by TFL or Scotrail, 1,426 will see no rail service during the day.

In a typical year, these stations would see an average of 1.6million entries and exits every day. The busiest stations to be closed on Tuesday are Bromley South (21,845), Moorfields, Liverpool (20,168), Earlsfield, London (17,860), Chester (13,955), Twickenham (13,657) and Southport (12,095).

Meanwhile, North Wales, Shrewsbury, Blackpool and Edinburgh will have no Avanti West Coast services on strike days.

Trains will also not be calling at Stockport, Macclesfield, Stoke-ontrent or Runcorn, and these stations will be closed.

Crosscountry will not run services from Birmingham New Street to Bristol Temple Meads, Cardiff Central, Peterborough, Cambridge or Stansted Airport across the three strike days, while a “very limited service” will run between Bristol Parkway and Plymouth and Birmingham New Street and Newcastle and Edinburgh Waverley.

Across the country, almost a third of local authorities will have no stations that run any services during the day.

An analysis across 14 major cities shows that at an average 381,726 passengers normally depart from 7pm onwards on weekdays.

That means at least 1.1 million even- ing journeys will be cancelled. However, the actual number is likely to be a lot higher.

Network Rail has not yet published its amended timetable for non-strike days next week but the disruption is expected to last the entire week because signallers and controllers will not work overnight on strike days.

As a result, the network will only offer up to 14,000 services on the nonstrike days because of the knock-on effects of the action.