CrossCountry passengers urged to only travel if necessary on upcoming strike days
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- Due to planned HS2 engineering works in the Birmingham area on Monday 2 January, many services will be replaced by buses for part of their journey and customers can expect significantly longer journey times
- RMT strike action on Tuesday 3, Wednesday 4, Friday 6 and Saturday 7 January
- ASLEF strike action on Thursday 5 January
- Significant disruption is expected – customers urged to only travel if necessary and check their journeys in advance
There will be significant disruption across the rail network in the first week of January due to planned industrial action by the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT). CrossCountry customers are urged to only travel if absolutely necessary and to check their journeys in advance.
The planned RMT strikes mean that CrossCountry can only run a limited service between 0730 and 1830 on 3, 4, 6 and 7 January with trains likely to be far busier than usual as customers travel during that week.
CrossCountry will run the following services on these dates:
- One train per hour from Birmingham to Leicester.
- One train per hour from Manchester to Reading, with extensions to Southampton. However, services will not call at Stockport, Macclesfield or Stoke-on-Trent.
- One train per hour from Birmingham to York, with some extensions to and from Edinburgh.
On Monday 2nd January, there will be an amended timetable in place due to engineering work which will impact services from Birmingham to Leicester, Cambridge, Stansted Airport and Nottingham, with buses replacing all trains between Coleshill Parkway and Birmingham New Street.
Services between the South West, Birmingham and the North East and Scotland will be diverted between Birmingham and Derby via Lichfield with extended journey times of up to an hour.
On Thursday 5 January there will be no CrossCountry services due to planned action by The Associated Society of Locomotive Engineers and Firemen (ASLEF).
On Sunday 8 January customers are advised to check before they travel as trains will start later following the strike action. Customers using other train operators to complete their journey should also check their websites before travelling.
Tom Joyner, Managing Director at CrossCountry said: “We are extremely disappointed and sorry that the latest round of industrial action is going to impact our customers returning to work in the New Year. We are still committed to finding a solution that will allow us to deliver a sustainable and improved railway and hope to be able to reach an agreement soon. We are urging our customers to only travel if necessary; if you have to travel by rail, please check our website for the most up to date travel advice and plan ahead.”
Information about CrossCountry services will be regularly updated at www.crosscountrytrains.co.uk/disruption, where there will also be information around Delay Repay, refund and ticket acceptance.