Rail ‘strike day’ timetables outlined as passengers urged to plan ahead and only travel by rail if necessary: Passengers image

Wednesday 15 Jun 2022

Rail ‘strike day’ timetables outlined as passengers urged to plan ahead and only travel by rail if necessary

Region & Route:
National
  • Coordinated industry contingency plan will see very limited timetable available on strike days with around 20% of services running
  • Trains will start later and finish much earlier than usual, between 7.30am and 6.30pm
  • Passengers asked to plan ahead, check before they travel, to expect disruption and only travel if necessary

The finishing touches are being made to a special railway timetable that will be in operation across England, Scotland and Wales from Monday 20th to Sunday 26th June (inclusive). The special timetable, to be published on Friday, aims to offer the best service possible for passengers and freight users despite the unwarranted industrial action planned next week by the RMT union.

Thousands of specially trained and fully qualified back-up staff will step-in during the planned RMT walk-outs on 21st June, 23rd and 25th to keep vital services running, but as they are a fraction of the usual workforce, only a severely limited service will be available.

Andrew Haines, Network Rail chief executive, said: “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.” 

Only around half of Britain’s rail network will be open on strike days with a very limited service running on lines that will only be open from around 7.30am until 6.30pm.

Passengers who must travel are urged to plan ahead to ensure that they can complete their journeys within this window, with last services from London to Scotland, for example, leaving in the early afternoon.

Steve Montgomery, Chair of the Rail Delivery Group, said: “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.

“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.”

On the days that follow the strikes (22nd, 24th and 26th June) the whole network will reopen but passengers should also expect disruption on these days as the strike days chosen have been designed to inflict as much disruption as possible, with not enough time between the strike days to fully recover to a normal service.

Further information for passengers is available on the National Rail website.

The special timetable will also ensure key freight services can continue to move around the country, minimising disruption for consumers and businesses and allowing vital goods to continue to be shipped where needed.

Notes to Editors

  • More details of next week’s special timetable will be available from Friday for the strike days and from Saturday for the other days with some operators able to publish details from today
  • A selection of last trains to and from some cities across the country:
      Edinburgh Leeds Newcastle Birmingham Manchester Liverpool
    From London 14:00 15:05 15:43 15:40 14:56 15:31
    To London 13:30 15:45 14:59 15:50 14:47 15:47
  Sheffield Nottingham Bristol Brighton Norwich Southampton
From London 15:31 16:09 16:33 17:50 16:30 17:00
To London 16:00 16:12 16:30 17:29 16:00 16:59
  • All train operators are affected by the strike (whether they have an individual dispute with the RMT or not) as Network Rail’s signallers control train movements across the entire country
  • Although the network will only be open from 7.30am to 6.30pm on strike days, electricity to tracks and overhead lines will stay on throughout, as will patrolling by security staff, police and from the air

Contact information

Passengers / community members
Network Rail national helpline
03457 11 41 41

Latest travel advice
Please visit National Rail Enquiries

Journalists
Network Rail press office - Kevin Groves
Head of Media
Network Rail
033 0854 3830 / 07887 896879
kevin.groves@networkrail.co.uk

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