Major Midlands rail disruption expected on four December strike dates: Services hit across Birmingham, Derby & Nottingham
CrossCountry warns passengers of significant disruptions due to planned industrial action by the RMT union around Christmas
The disruption is expected to take place next week on Saturday 6 December and the strike will be the first of four planned in December.
The rest of the strikes will take place on the 13th, 20th and 27th of December.
As part of the strikes, RMT union members in customer service roles are expected to decline to work.
In terms of travel, all CrossCountry routes will be impacted, with a limited service on some routes and no services on some parts of the network.
As well as this, services will also finish much earlier than usual.
Trains that do run will be significantly busier than usual and services will also finish much earlier in the day - so passengers are advised to plan return journeys carefully.
There will also be changes to some calling patterns for services that do run, and planned engineering work will mean some journeys take longer than usual.
Shiona Rolfe, CrossCountry’s Managing Director, said: “We are disappointed that the RMT has announced more industrial action that will disrupt customers over the busy Christmas period. We’ve worked hard to make a fair and reasonable offer that addresses the key points raised in this dispute, and we believe we’ve made meaningful progress in negotiations.
“Our priority is now minimising disruption for those travelling on Saturdays in December – but while we will try to run as many services as possible, there will inevitably be significant disruption.”
The strike coincides with many Christmas markets across the country, as well as other events and some football matches.
On Saturday 6 December, a limited CrossCountry service will operate between:
- Birmingham and Manchester
- Birmingham and Reading
- Birmingham and Bristol
- Birmingham and Derby
A very limited service will operate between:
- Derby, Leeds and Edinburgh
There will be no CrossCountry services in operation between:
- Bristol, Plymouth and Penzance
- Bournemouth and Reading
- Newton Abbot and Paignton
- Edinburgh and Glasgow
- Edinburgh and Aberdeen
- Derby and Nottingham
- Birmingham to Stansted Airport via Leicester, Peterborough and Cambridge
- Cheltenham Spa and Cardiff
There will be revised calling patterns for services that usually operate at:
- Stockport
- Macclesfield
- Wolverhampton
- Birmingham International
- Coventry
- Oxford
- Basingstoke
- Worcestershire Parkway
- Alnmouth
- Morpeth
- Durham
- Wakefield Westgate