Passengers travelling by train in England have just experienced another week of \u2018action short of a strike\u2019 \u2013 in other words an overtime ban \u2013 by members of the train drivers\u2019 union Aslef.<\/p>\n
As a result, some train companies have scaled back the timetable \u2013 for instance running hourly instead of half-hourly. And passengers have still faced cancellations on top of that already reduced timetable. If a normally half-hourly service is thinned to hourly and then there\u2019s a cancellation \u2018due to a shortage of train drivers\u2019 it leaves a damaging two-hour gap between trains \u2013 and often crowding on the next one that runs.<\/p>\n
Perhaps the most headline hitting impact of this week\u2019s action is the decision that there will be NO trains to or from Brighton on Saturday 5 August, the first day of Brighton and Hove Pride. Because of the overtime ban it seems that too few trains could run to safely manage the numbers likely to descend on Brighton station on Saturday evening. A lot of people will have their weekend disrupted as a result. And it\u2019s not just Pride, of course, if you live in Brighton and have a holiday flight from Gatwick on Saturday, you\u2019ll have to get there some other way.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s not over. Aslef members at various train companies in England won\u2019t be working overtime next week: there is more \u2018action short of a strike\u2019 from Monday 7 to Saturday 12 August. Again, there\u2019ll be a pared back timetable on some train companies and dreaded short notice cancellations on others \u2013 details on National Rail Enquiries<\/a>.<\/p>\n For passengers\u2019 sake the two sides must keep talking, keep exploring options to find a deal.\u00a0 People have been messed about for too long. Whether it\u2019s no trains at all, reduced timetables or short notice cancellations, passengers are getting a raw deal. People are losing faith in the railway as a reliable way to get about \u2013 and they may not come back.\u00a0 Depressingly, there is talk of unions announcing new strike dates for later this month and into September. Passengers really need a resolution to this dispute.<\/p>\n The post Rail travel blighted by overtime ban<\/a> appeared first on Transport Focus<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Passengers travelling by train in England have just experienced another week of \u2018action short of a strike\u2019 \u2013 in other words an overtime ban \u2013 by members of the train drivers\u2019 union Aslef. As a result, some train companies have scaled back the timetable \u2013 for instance running hourly instead of half-hourly. And passengers have still faced cancellations on top…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1439,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-camcab"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3040"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/camcab.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}