Given the announced rail strike, a special railway timetable is being finalized for use across England, Scotland, and Wales from Monday, June 20th to Sunday, June 26th (inclusive). Despite the unjustified industrial action planned by the RMT union next week, the special timetable, which will be published on Friday, aims to provide the best service possible for passengers and freight users.
Thousands of specially trained and thoroughly qualified back-up employees will step in to keep key services operating during the scheduled RMT walkouts on June 21, 23, and 25, but because they are a fraction of the regular workforce, only a severely limited service will be available.
“Talks have not progressed as far as I had hoped and so we must prepare for a needless national rail strike and the damaging impact it will have. We, and our train operating colleagues, are gearing up to run the best service we can for passengers and freight users next week despite the actions of the RMT.”
Andrew Haines, Network Rail chief executive
Rail strike days timetable
On strike days, just around half of Britain’s rail network will be operational, with only a limited service running on lines that will be open from roughly 7.30 a.m. to 6.30 p.m.
Passengers who must travel should plan ahead to ensure that they can complete their journeys within this time frame, with last services from London to Scotland departing in the early afternoon, for example.
“These strikes will affect the millions of people who use the train each day, including key workers, students with exams, those who cannot work from home, holidaymakers and those attending important business and leisure events.”
Steve Montgomery, Chair of the Rail Delivery Group
“Working with Network Rail, our plan is to keep as many services running as possible, but significant disruption will be inevitable and some parts of the network will not have a service, so passengers should plan their journeys carefully and check their train times.
Taxpayers have provided the equivalent of about £600 per household since covid and passenger numbers are still only at around 75% of pre pandemic levels. We need to bring rail up to date so that we attract more people back and take no more than our fair share from the public purse.
We ask the RMT’s leadership to call off these damaging strikes and continue talks to reach a deal that is fair to staff and taxpayers, and which secures a bright, long-term future of our railways.”
The entire network will reopen on the days following the strikes (22nd, 24th, and 26th June), but passengers should expect disruption on these days as well, as the strike days were chosen to cause as much disruption as possible, with insufficient time between the strike days to fully recover to a normal service.