Rail passengers face another day of reduced services on Saturday as thousands of Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union workers continue a 48-hour strike.
People have been asked to only try to travel if absolutely necessary on the last full weekend before Christmas, with only a skeleton service running and all train journeys ending in the early evening.
Rail companies advised passengers to plan ahead and check for updates online, with around 20% of normal services running between 7.30am and 6.30pm on Saturday, and no trains in some areas . Outages are expected to continue into Sunday morning.
Thousands of RMT members at Network Rail and 14 train operators, joined by members of the Transport Salaried Staff Association (TSSA) at six operators on Saturday, will take action in the dispute over pay and conditions.
It will be the last strike before Christmas Eve, giving some opportunity to people who want to travel. However, an overtime ban starting for RMT train staff from Sunday will continue to affect services until January, with severe disruption to operators including Chiltern and South Western Railway.
A small number of national highway traffic controllers and officers from the PCS union will also continue strikes on Saturday, potentially increasing any disruption to the roads in the event of a traffic incident. The agency, which monitors strategic roads and highways, said no roads would be closed and remained confident of the mitigation plans it had in place.
Faint hopes were raised that the rail dispute could reach a conclusion before further strikes in January.
The union’s general secretary Mick Lynch said on Friday there were no “new proposals” but more meetings and “probing” of possible solutions, after an apparently positive meeting between the RMT, Rail Minister Huw Merriman and the railway industry. leaders Thursday evening.
Lynch said he “had an exchange about what might be possible and some ways forward and ideas that all parties shared. . . . There’s no real negotiations; there’s some probing of what might develop.”
However, he told Sky News he was “optimistic” that a compromise deal could be reached, adding: “I know there are some very simple steps that employers and ourselves could take together to get a solution to that.”
The TSSA, whose members earlier this week voted to accept Network Rail’s improved pay offer, also remains at loggerheads with train operators, with some industrial action at virtually all of England’s contracted in the Department of Transport.
Transport for Wales, which has not been affected by the strike, confirmed on Friday that it had reached an agreement with all rail unions for a 4.5% pay rise.
TSSA interim leader Frank Ward said he had reached an agreement where there had been “genuine negotiations”, adding: “It is very clear that the Rishi Sunak government is responsible for blocking negotiations with the trains and ruin Christmas for railway workers and passengers alike.”
The next RMT strike at Network Rail is due to take place from 6pm on December 24 until 6am on December 27. Although the union said it should not affect passengers, with virtually no trains over the Christmas holiday period, which is spent on engineering work, Network Rail said it would stop trains on Christmas Eve.
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One of the few companies expected to operate, Eurostar, announced on Friday that it would have to cancel Boxing Day services. While some cross-channel services had run on previous strike days, he said he had been told the UK High Speed Line to London would be closed.
Retailers and the hospitality and entertainment sectors have complained of mounting losses with street traffic and people’s travel plans affected.
Figures from location technology company TomTom showed morning rush hour road congestion during the strikes was significantly higher in London, Liverpool and Glasgow compared to a week earlier, while street traffic dropped by up to 17% on strike days this week, according to Springboard.
The RAC’s research found that young people in particular were seeing their Christmas travel plans affected by the strikes, with two in five 18-24 year olds having to alter their journeys. Of these, roughly half planned to travel by car, and a quarter still didn’t know how to get to their planned Christmas destinations.
RAC spokesman Rod Dennis said: “There is no doubt that the strikes will make this year’s Christmas break on the roads busier than normal.”
Meanwhile, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic have stopped selling new tickets for flights to Heathrow on days affected by Border Force strikes over Christmas.
An airport spokesman said the decision came after a request from the Border Force, although he added that no flights had had to be canceled as a result.
Border Force staff at Heathrow Terminals 2, 3, 4 and 5, as well as Birmingham, Cardiff, Gatwick, Glasgow and Manchester airports and the Port of Newhaven, are planning to strike from 23-26 and December 28-31.