Weeks of rail strikes could prove devastating for an already outmoded and faltering industry

sir – The rail strikes taking place this week are ostensibly to secure the future of rail workers. Unfortunately, it is more likely that they will have the opposite effect. Numbers of passengers dropped sharply due to the pandemic. Now, just as they are showing some signs of recovery, passengers are facing the possibility of months of disruption.

Those who use the railways regularly will think twice about spending hard-earned cash on season tickets. The popularity of commuting by car and working from home could well see passengers now desert the railways, never to return.

Jonathan Mann

Gunnislake, Cornwall

sir – Union bosses love strikes. They justify their high salaries at the expense of their members.

All strikes (like all wars) are resolved around the negotiating table. Thus a strike, like a war, is futile and supremely expensive both to the participants and the country. It achieves nothing that couldn’t have been negotiated by men of integrity in the first place.

GME Barber

Sudbury, Suffolk

sir – Those most affected by the strikes will be the poorer-paid workers who cannot work from home, and children and students in the middle of exams. It is very difficult to justify a strike when the people most affected either earn far less or are among the younger generation on whom our future depends.

Andrew Robinson

Sheffield, South Yorkshire

sir – The rail unions are showing contempt for the health of rail users who need to travel to cities for cancer treatment, dialysis and other critical reasons, and families travelling to see relatives receiving end-of-life care.

There are other industrial actions they could have considered without inconveniencing these users, including strikes by freight train drivers and cleaners, or working to rule. Whether their actions are justified or not, strikers need to consider the wider effect of their actions on the public.

Chris Barmby

Tonbridge, Kent

sir – The rail unions are completely missing the point with their current strike strategy.

There is a brave new world approaching with the prospect of sophisticated office bots, artificial intelligence, and driverless, guardless, ticketless trains. Surely unions understand that they cannot remain in the past and attempt to maintain obsolete systems. They would be better serving their members if they identified the next generation of jobs and organised training in order to be ready for them.

Chris Lambert

Tadworth, Surrey

sir – Many cities in the world, including Paris, Barcelona, Tokyo and

Dubai, now have driverless train systems. Vienna plans to introduce driverless trains to its underground next year. Driverless technology is the only way forward.

Duncan Rayner

Sunningdale, Berkshire

sir – Last Thursday, my wife and I enjoyed a return trip on a heritage railway run by volunteers. We were hauled by a steam engine through glorious countryside, along a line dotted with ornate, well-maintained old stations decorated with well-kept flowerbeds.

I am sure the volunteers – engineers, signalmen, guards, and those staffing tea-rooms and gift-shops – recognise that they can continue only with the support of paying tourists. Perhaps, with the national network crippled by strikers, people up and down the country could head to their nearest heritage line and demonstrate support for these rather special rail workers. Brian Symonds