There will be two national strikes on the railways next week affecting most services on Wednesday, and many on Saturday.
The RMT, Aslef and the TSSA unions are all striking on Wednesday 27th and Saturday 30th July, and the train companies are warning that a significantly reduced temporary timetable will be in place, and are saying that people should only travel if absolutely necessary.
On both strike days, an extremely limited service will operate during the day, and the last trains will leave much earlier. On non-strike days, services are unlikely to run before 7am, and due to the timing of the strike action, services on either side of the strike days will also be affected up to and including Sunday 31st July.
As it’s strike action instead of planned engineering, the rail companies cannot offer replacement bus services.
While the industrial action doesn’t involve Transport for London (TfL) staff, varying degrees of disruption are expected on the District and Bakerloo lines, London Overground, and the Elizabeth line, which all share some sections of track with Network Rail. The majority of TfL’s other services will run on Wednesday as usual.
Early indications from the train operating companies covering London and the Southeast of England for next Wednesday are as follows, with the Saturday timetable likely to be released next week.
Avanti West Coast
Avanti West Coast expects to run one train per hour between Euston and each of Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham and Preston with a limited service to Glasgow.
The significantly reduced timetable will mean North Wales, Shrewsbury, Blackpool and Edinburgh have no Avanti West Coast services on the strike day.
C2C
Chiltern Railways
There will be NO Chiltern Railways service North of Banbury, nor to/from Oxford.
The following limited services will run with first services after 8am-9am and the last usually being before 4pm-5pm.
- 1 train per hour Marylebone – stations to Oxford Parkway (and vice-versa).
- 1 train per hour Marylebone – stations to Banbury (and vice versa).
- 1 train per hour Marylebone – stations to Aylesbury (via High Wycombe, and vice-versa).
- 1 train per hour Aylesbury Vale Parkway – stations to Amersham (and vice-versa).
East Midlands Railway
Greater Anglia
There is likely to be a very limited service on lines into London Liverpool Street only, with no trains before 7.30am and every journey complete by 6.30pm – meaning most last trains from Liverpool Street will be between 4pm and 5pm. No trains will run on branch or regional lines.
Great Northern
GWR
No rail services will operate on Wednesday 27 July on the following routes:
- All lines in Cornwall, including all branch lines
- All branch lines in Devon (Barnstaple, Exmouth, Paignton, Okehampton)
- South Wales main line (Carmarthen/Swansea-Cardiff Central)
- Berks & Hants line (Reading-Taunton via Castle Cary)
- Wessex main line (Bath Spa-Portsmouth Harbour)
- Heart of Wessex line (Westbury-Weymouth)
- TransWilts line (Swindon-Westbury via Melksham)
- Severn Beach line (Bristol Temple Meads-Severn Beach)
- North Cotswolds line (Hereford/Worcester-Oxford)
- South Cotswolds line (Cheltenham Spa-Swindon)
- Worcester/-Gloucester-Bristol
- Greenford branch line
- North Downs line (Reading-Gatwick Airport)
- South Coast (Westbury-Southampton/Portsmouth Harbour)
With train drivers set to strike on Saturday 30th July, GWR expects to operate even fewer services on the second of the two strike days.
LNER
London North Western Railway
Routes with a limited service from 7.30am to 6.30pm are:
- Northampton – London Euston – 2 trains per hour
- Birmingham – Northampton – 1 train per hour
- Birmingham – Crewe – 1 train per hour
No LNR trains will run on any other route, including London Euston-Crewe, Birmingham-Liverpool, St Albans Abbey-Watford Junction and Bedford-Bletchley.
Southeastern
Southeastern is warning that it expects to run just 20% of the normal timetable, and all but 44 of 180 stations will be shut, with only the London-Sevenoaks and Dartford lines remaining open within London, running a very limited service.
There will be no trains at all on the Hastings line, nor the branch lines including Sittingbourne to Sheppey, the Medway Valley Line and the Grove Park to Bromley North line.
Trains on the severely reduced network will only run between 07:00 and 19:00, and there will be no trains on any other route, with the last trains back from London running much earlier than usual.
Southern
South Western Railway
SWR’s reduced timetable will run from 7:15am to 6:30pm on strike day, and will consist of:
- Four trains per hour in each direction between Waterloo and Windsor via Hounslow
- Two semi-fast trains per hour in each direction between Waterloo and Basingstoke
- Four trains per hour in each direction between Waterloo and Woking
- Two fast trains per hour in each direction between Waterloo and Southampton
Trains will not stop at all stations on these routes. There will be no SWR services across the rest of the network.
Thameslink
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The RMT has also announced further strike dates on Thursday 18 and Saturday 20 August.
You didn’t include London Overground, although technically tfl it’s run by a Arriva Rail London and their drivers have overwhelmingly voted for strike action
The London Overground strike, if it goes ahead will be on the Saturday, and the impacts/timetable for that hasn’t been released yet — the details above are for the Wednesday strike.
So is this gonna be like the other strikes where they tell you tube is running and you get to the station and the doors are locked??
Worth noting that today (27th July) GWR and Cross Country are terminating at Exeter St David’s and not running through to Plymouth due to a lack of signalling staff this time round.
GWR is also one of the operators affected by the drivers’ strike on Saturday 30th and will only be running London Paddington to Bristol Temple Meads. This will put extra pressure on Cross Country services.