East Midland Railways have issued advice to people affected by today’s train strikes, which have seen a reduction of 70 per cent in the frequency of services running across the region.
More than 40,000 members of the RMT union working at Network Rail and 14 train operators are on strike today across the UK, affecting the journeys of thousands of passengers.
Around 30 per cent of services are running in the East Midlands today (Wednesday, July 27), with regional lines running at a reduced frequency.
Andy Commons, Head of External Relations at East Midlands Railways, said the big impact people will notice as a result of the strikes, is if they’re trying to get home later today.
Customers are being asked to only travel by rail if absolutely necessary.
“The last train is generally just before 6pm this evening, so much earlier than normal,” he said.
“I’d just really strongly urge customers that if they do need to travel today, to check their journey before they set off, and make sure their journey can be completed.”
Today’s strike will also have a knock-on effect on tomorrow’s services (Thursday, July 28), with services having a later start up than normal. The first trains of the morning tomorrow will set off at around 7am as opposed to around 5am.
“That’s due to the strikes affecting the night shifts here at EMR and other parts of the railway, but after around 7am trains run as normal,” explained Mr Commons.
“We’ll run to our normal finishing time at midnight tomorrow.”
He also expressed disappointment over the the RMT strikes.
“We’ve been really clear as a rail industry that we want to see these strikes resolved, and ended. They’re obviously damaging to the business but more importantly to customers,” he said.
“It would need negotiation between government and the top level of the railway to come to an agreement as to how we can move forward, and we really hope that happens really soon.”
The next strikes that will affect East Midlands Railways are currently scheduled for August 18 and 20.
To find out more, visit: https://www.eastmidlandsrailway.co.uk/
