Britain’s rail services will be severely disrupted on Saturday by the biggest strike by train drivers since the railway was privatized in 1996.
Members of the Aslef union will stop work for seven train operators for 24 hours, bringing parts of the network to a halt and leaving only a few trains running on other lines.
The drivers’ strike comes three days after a national strike by members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) union, including Network Rail signalmen and crew on board 14 train operators, shut down most services.
The strike coincides with the first weekend of the Commonwealth Games and the opening day of the new season of the English football league.
West Midlands Trains, which provides services to sports venues around Birmingham, the host city of the Games, will not operate this Saturday due to the strike. However, strike action was called off at Chiltern Railways, which runs services between London and Birmingham, after Aslef agreed to take another strike vote of its members rather than risk a court order for objections.
No trains will run on the South East or most of the London Overground. Only a few trains will run on Great Western, with no Heathrow Express or GWR services west of Bristol to Wales. LNER trains will be greatly reduced, particularly through Leeds, and will not run north of Edinburgh. Only a few Greater Anglia services and one Hull Trains service in each direction will operate on Saturday.
Some outages are expected to persist into the morning of Sunday, July 31, due to shift patterns and the knock-on effects of the outages.
The Rail Delivery Group (RDG), which speaks on behalf of train operators, said the strike would disrupt the plans of millions of passengers, particularly those hoping to attend sporting events. He urged passengers to plan ahead and check the latest travel advice.
RDG chairman Steve Montgomery said: “We are truly disappointed that Aslef management have decided to impose even more uncertainty and disruption for passengers and businesses in a week that has already seen an RMT strike.
“Like any service or business, we have to move with the times and we can’t keep asking taxpayers or passengers for more money when we should be responding to the big changes in travel behavior post-Covid.”
The RDG said passengers could use any advance tickets on Friday or until Tuesday, or change their tickets or claim a refund.
Montgomery urged Aslef to resume talks. However, Aslef general secretary Mick Whelan responded: “We are happy to talk, but the train operators say there is nothing to talk about, they have no offer to make.”
Aslef, like sister unions RMT and the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA), say the government has prevented the industry from offering a pay rise close to inflation, despite ministers saying it is in the hands of employers.
The union has agreed in principle a 6.6% increase from Transport for Wales, although this is pending membership ratification, following an 8.2% deal with Eurostar and a 5.1% increase in ScotRail.
Whelan said strikes were “always a last resort” but the union had been “forced into this position by the companies, who say they have been pushed by the Conservative government”.
It said many of its members had not received a pay rise since 2019, suffering a pay cut in real terms.
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The unions’ analysis was backed by London Mayor Sadiq Khan, who said the strike was to blame for the government, which was “interfering with rail companies who want to do a deal”.
Khan said: “The only way to resolve these disputes is if [the transport secretary] Grant Shapps and the government stop pulling strings and allow the rail companies to talk to the unions.”
A new strike by Aslef drivers is scheduled for August 13, while the RMT and TSSA will start union action on August 18 and 20.