Rail Strikes announced

[Mezhyp1]

20 minutes ago, zahidf said:

Absokute dickheads. Ruining the festival plans for 10s of thousands of people. Hope they break the union 

i hope it's inconvenient as humanly possible for you 

[stopwn1981]

22 minutes ago, zahidf said:

Absokute dickheads. Ruining the festival plans for 10s of thousands of people. Hope they break the union 

You should defo spend some time sitting under Tony benn tower 😂

[oakdown]

Little bit worried my Edinburgh - Bristol train on Monday is gonna be absolutely mobbed now, but thankful that's the worst of it for me. Feel for everyone it's caused chaos for. 

[eddie_corrigan]

25 minutes ago, zahidf said:

Absokute dickheads. Ruining the festival plans for 10s of thousands of people. Hope they break the union 

If and when you do make it to glasto can I recommend a trip to the leftfield?….

[AlexOvd]

I am arriving to London on Tuesday, in the middle of the storm. Booking my coach from Heatrow just now, they will fly...

[Euphoricape]

Travelling from Cornwall on Wednesday morning (7.05 train). Can I assume this will almost certainly be delayed/cancelled..?

[Rose-Colored Boy]

26 minutes ago, TaylorT said:

That does not sound like the news anyone wants to hear then. Shit balls.

This has pissed right on our campfire and with only 2 weeks to go man 😭
 

 

Honestly it’s taken us in the industry by surprise too - the expectation was that they’d strike during the Commonwealth Games seeing as almost the entire national train network runs through Birmingham, so 21st June is a lot sooner than we’d prepared for. But there are still two weeks to resolve the issues which is plenty of time if the government and TOCs engage constructively. 

Edited June 7, 2022 by Rose-Colored Boy

[theciderviking]

Well it’s a bit of a pain, but absolute solidarity with those fighting for job security! Nobody should ever be forced to take such drastic action in order to guarantee they can continue doing the job they love on the same terms and conditions as have already been agreed.

Let’s hope common sense and decency prevails, but if it takes a strike for people to keep their jobs then those striking have my support. ❤️

[rhyscork]

So heres a brief very quick summary of whats happening:

Trains have been funded by the Gov during Covid.

The deal was basically: Government pay the bills, train companies keep the profits

Shareholders have been paid out over £995 MILLION in this time

There have been a massive cut of staff and resources in this time, mainly through Voluntary redundancies and not filling vacant job roles. 100s of management jobs have also been cut

There was a GUARENTEE of no COMPULSARY REDUNDANCES until Jan 2022, which has obviously now passed

The TOCs (train operating companies) have refused to renew this. 

Ticket Office staff and Platform staff in particular are at massive risk of losing their jobs

Abuse of staff (verbal, physical, sexist, racist etc) has gone through the roof

Multiple staff have died as a result of Covid while being called "key workers", those same job roles are now under threat.

 

[clarkete]

33 minutes ago, zahidf said:

Absokute dickheads. Ruining the festival plans for 10s of thousands of people. Hope they break the union 

What a strange reaction to 50,000 people planning a strike, which is one of the few things they're allowed to do when the jobs of 2,500 colleagues are threatened. 

I am one of the people who would have taken the train and let me be quite clear - you absolutely don't speak for me. 

[rhyscork]

11 minutes ago, Euphoricape said:

Travelling from Cornwall on Wednesday morning (7.05 train). Can I assume this will almost certainly be delayed/cancelled..?

Hard to say for sure. The busier the line, the better the service will be. Quiet lines will suffer more

[TaylorT]

9 minutes ago, Rose-Colored Boy said:

Honestly it’s taken us in the industry by surprise too - the expectation was that they’d strike during the Commonwealth Games seeing as almost the entire national train network runs through Birmingham, so 21st June is a lot sooner than we’d prepared for. There are still two weeks to resolve the issues which is plenty of time if the government and TOCs engage constructively. 

Totally understand the reasoning for it all and I hope it is resolved to save much grief and inconvenience to everything and everyone involved. If we had a % chance of it being resolved whats our chances? 
 

BBC also say a 5th of services will still run so there is still trains on? 

[Rose-Colored Boy]

3 minutes ago, rhyscork said:

So heres a brief very quick summary of whats happening:

Trains have been funded by the Gov during Covid.

The deal was basically: Government pay the bills, train companies keep the profits

Shareholders have been paid out over £995 MILLION in this time

There have been a massive cut of staff and resources in this time, mainly through Voluntary redundancies and not filling vacant job roles. 100s of management jobs have also been cut

There was a GUARENTEE of no COMPULSARY REDUNDANCES until Jan 2022, which has obviously now passed

The TOCs (train operating companies) have refused to renew this. 

Ticket Office staff and Platform staff in particular are at massive risk of losing their jobs

Abuse of staff (verbal, physical, sexist, racist etc) has gone through the roof

Multiple staff have died as a result of Covid while being called "key workers", those same job roles are now under threat.

 

You can add “we haven’t had a pay rise in three years despite tickets going up in price every year” to that 

[Jt92]

What’s everyone’s advice for coming from Cornwall? I already have a ticket (non refundable). Do I book parking ? And assume my ticket will be cancelled? Nightmare 

[rhyscork]

Just now, TaylorT said:

Totally understand the reasoning for it all and I hope it is resolved to save much grief and inconvenience to everything and everyone involved. If we had a % chance of it being resolved whats our chances? 
 

BBC also say a 5th of services will still run so there is still trains on? 

The Government absolutely do not need this to add to their current issues/ problems/ bad press. There is a chance of it getting at least postponed on a guarantee of no compulsory redundancies. 

[dmedxb]

15 minutes ago, Rose-Colored Boy said:

Honestly it’s taken us in the industry by surprise too - the expectation was that they’d strike during the Commonwealth Games seeing as almost the entire national train network runs through Birmingham, so 21st June is a lot sooner than we’d prepared for. But there are still two weeks to resolve the issues which is plenty of time if the government and TOCs engage constructively. 

I'll preface this by saying I very much support strike action and so I hope any comment doesn't come across selfish. I don't have any family/friends in the industry so I just don't know much about it. 

Do you think there's likelihood of a deal, though? 

[Suprefan]

36 minutes ago, defrio29 said:

I need to get to Bath from London on the 21st. So what's my options now? (Coming from overseas btw)

Yeah, coach, should be plenty.

[rhyscork]

1 minute ago, Rose-Colored Boy said:

You can add “we haven’t had a pay rise in three years despite tickets going up in price every year” to that 

If i had any upvotes left, you would have one

[rhyscork]

The thing thats really annoyed me about it all is the PR line of

"we can't afford X because the railway doesn't make enough money/ isn't profitable"

Lets be clear, Railways are not designed to be profitable, they are designed to boost the economy via passenger/ freight transport in the areas where there are stations (eg Reading is not a massive hub outside of London if it dosnt have a train station)

[Rose-Colored Boy]

2 minutes ago, TaylorT said:

Totally understand the reasoning for it all and I hope it is resolved to save much grief and inconvenience to everything and everyone involved. If we had a % chance of it being resolved whats our chances? 
 

BBC also say a 5th of services will still run so there is still trains on? 

Before this announcement I’d have said 40% chance of it being resolved, now that it’s coming much earlier than expected - coupled with the tone of the RMT statement - makes me think the chances are much lower than that. 

The exact details won’t be confirmed until closer to the time but if 20% of services will run that that will most likely be heavily be made up of cargo services. Managers have been in scab training for months but there only so many of them to go around so any passenger services which go ahead will be ‘at risk’ right until the moment they actually depart.

And of course any infrastructure issues which pop up with signalling issues etc during the strike days won’t be able to be fixed until the next full working day, because track maintenance is one of the key departments in the dispute. 

TL;DR - make other plans if there’s any way anyone can. 

[Rose-Colored Boy]

7 minutes ago, dmedxb said:

I'll preface this by saying I very much support strike action and so I hope any comment doesn't come across selfish. I don't have any family/friends in the industry so I just don't know much about it. 

Do you think there's likelihood of a deal, though? 

It’s not completely impossible - so much of the talk on both sides, but particularly the government’s, is just bluster. But based on talking to colleagues and local unions reps it feels pretty likely to go ahead at this stage. 

[Earth_pig]

Wow annoying i was getting a train to castle cary on the 21st.

😞

[zahidf]

Does Glasto give money to the unions? Maybe the Eaviss should have a word that their contribution may not happen this year if they insist on fuckimg over the festvial 

[efcfanwirral]

2 minutes ago, Earth_pig said:

Wow annoying i was getting a train to castle cary on the 21st.

😞

Same. We've had to change to the 20th now, but we're fortunate enough to have the flexibility to do so. 

Edited June 7, 2022 by efcfanwirral

[TaylorT]

12 minutes ago, Rose-Colored Boy said:

Before this announcement I’d have said 40% chance of it being resolved, now that it’s coming much earlier than expected - coupled with the tone of the RMT statement - makes me think the chances are much lower than that. 

The exact details won’t be confirmed until closer to the time but if 20% of services will run that that will most likely be heavily be made up of cargo services. Managers have been in scab training for months but there only so many of them to go around so any passenger services which go ahead will be ‘at risk’ right until the moment they actually depart.

And of course any infrastructure issues which pop up with signalling issues etc during the strike days won’t be able to be fixed until the next full working day, because track maintenance is one of the key departments in the dispute. 

TL;DR - make other plans if there’s any way anyone can. 

Thank you for insightful, constructive info then. Gonna play it out a few days then make a decision on alternative travel. Just gonna have to by the looks of it. 

Man. I wish it was just the weather we still needed to worry about. We were at the last hurdle 😭😂