Tuesday 20 Dec 2022
RMT strike to cause severe rail disruption on across Wales and Borders on Christmas Eve
- Region & Route:
- Wales & Western: Wales & Borders
Passengers are advised to only travel if absolutely necessary and to travel before lunchtime or on another day due to upcoming strike action.
RMT strike action planned for Christmas Eve will have a severe impact on rail services on the day with passengers being advised to only travel if absolutely necessary or to consider travelling another day.
With most vital RMT staff due to leave their posts at 6pm on Saturday 24 December, by then, all trains will have to be off the network and safely stabled, ready for start-up on 27 December. This means services will need to stop much earlier in the afternoon. Passengers should still check before they travel ahead of 27 December start-up.
On Christmas Eve, services will only be able to run on the south Wales mainline, East of Cardiff, and on the Core Valley Lines with no other services across the Wales and Borders network.
Transport for Wales is not involved in the industrial action, however, will not be able to operate rail services on Network Rail infrastructure.
Nick Millington, interim route director at Network Rail Wales and Border said: “It’s disappointing that these strikes are going ahead following months of negotiations and when a fair deal was put on the table. I would like to apologise to passengers for the disruption that they will face throughout the festive period.
“We’ll continue to run the best service possible for those people whose travel is absolutely necessary, but with services extremely limited on Christmas Eve, I recommend everyone to consider other travel arrangements. If other travel arrangements aren’t possible, I’d urge people to travel earlier in the week or as earlier as possible on Christmas Eve. Any trains which do run will be very busy and will finish much earlier in the day.
"Service will resume on Tuesday 27 December, but again, please do check before you travel as these services are expected to be much busier than usual."
Industrial action is also planned to take place on Tuesday 3, Wednesday 4, Friday 6 and Saturday 7 January 2023 (RMT) as well as Thursday 5 January 2023 (ASLEF).
As well as checking www.nationalrail.co.uk on impacts to journeys, rail travellers should also visit individual train operators to find out how the strike action is affecting their services.
- Transport for Wales’ information page
- GWR’s information page
- Avanti West Coast’s information page
- West Midlands Railways' information page
- CrossCountry’s information page
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