After a summer full of disputes, and the government refusing to negotiate, the most recent rounds of train strikes have been called off, unfortunately with most services remaining disrupted, I revisit the subject, to see what has changed.
I first wrote about the strikes earlier in the year, as they were starting to begin, unfortunately over the summer there was strike after strike, with Grant Shapps, the previous secretary of state for transport taking a no negotiation stance. This meant there were no talks and the strikes continued, however after the reshuffling of various ministerial positions, there is a new minister, Mark Harper.
In his limited time so far it has become apparent that his position is very different, with talks now taking place between the TOC’s( the train operating companies) and the unions, strike action has been suspended for the time being.
However disappointingly it appears that some TOC’s have decided that it is not worth the effort to reinstate a time table, and so are running the strike on Saturday and Monday, at the time of writing the plans for Wednesday were not clear.
They companies have claimed that it is too difficult to reinstate the timetable, however I struggle to believe that they are unable to use the normal timetable, which has been in use for weeks not, with 2 days of preparations, let alone four, when some TOCs did it in less than a day! When they have a weekend engineering timetable does it take them that many days of running no services to resume the timetable? I feel that there is some fundamental problem which is at the core of our rail system, and something needs to change.
I wish both the TOC’s and the unions the best in sorting out their differences, and I hope that this period of disruption will come to an end with success on all sides.
All statements were correct at time of writing.
