UK rail workers in 24-hour strike

LONDON — Britain’s railway network ground to a crawl on Wednesday after 40,000 staff walked off the job in a dispute over jobs, pay and working conditions. Train companies said only about a fifth of services across the country were due to run.

The 24-hour strike by cleaners, signalers, maintenance workers and station staff comes a month after the country’s most disruptive rail walkout in three decades brought trains to a halt across the U.K. at the start of the summer holiday season.

Negotiations aimed at resolving the dispute are deadlocked. The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers says employers’ latest pay offer falls short amid soaring inflation — currently 9.4% — and the worst cost-of-living crisis in decades.