Biggest rail strike the UK has seen in 30 years is officially underway

The Rail, Maritime and Transport union strike officially begins today (Monday 20 June) and will continue throughout the week.

Commuter chaos ensued this morning in Leeds and will continue throughout the day as a whopping 80% of all trains running across Great Britain are cancelled.

Today marks the biggest walk-out of rail staff in more than 30 years with further walk-outs due to take place on Thursday and Saturday. The union have confirmed that an estimated 50,000 employees will be walking out over the course of the week, making it the biggest train strike since 1989.

The strikes are an attempt to reform the rail industry and Network Rail alongside 13 other train networks will be taking part.

Strike days are scheduled today, Thursday 23 and Saturday 25 June. A very limited service will be seen from all networks on these days with most trains only running between 7.30am and 6.30pm.

Network Rail has urged passengers to check their travel route ahead of time with train operators and only travel if absolutely necessary on strike days. The disruption will heavily impact Leeds and Yorkshire, here is a list of all the services effected.

Northern Rail

Northern Rail have stated they will have “extremely limited availability” of train staff and that the majority of services will not be running. They urge passengers not to travel at all between Tuesday 21 June and Sunday 26 June.

The seven services running on the days of the strike are as follows:

• N3 Darlington – Saltburn
• N15 Liverpool Lime Street – Alderley Edge
• N35 York – Leeds
• N39 Ilkley – Bradford FS – Leeds
• N40 Skipton – Bradford FS – Leeds
• N42 Leeds – Sheffield
• N46 Leeds – Bradford FS

You can find the full Northern timetable here.

Transpennine Express

Transpennine will also experience serious disruption and will be closing a number of stations during the strike period.

There will be roughly one train per hour between Manchester and York, and every two to four hours on other routes, and no trains at all to the following stations:

• Yarm
• Scarborough
• Seamer
• Malton
• Selby
• Brough
• Hull

Some other Transpennine services will only have limited availability, these are as follows:

• Anglo-Scottish Route (Manchester Airport – Preston)
• North Route (Manchester Piccadilly – York)
• Borders Route (Newcastle – Edinburgh)
• South Route (Cleethorpes – Sheffield)

Find their full timetable here.

London North Eastern Railway

LNER have announced that only 38% of their trains will be running on all strike days.

There will be no services between Leeds, Harrogate, Hull, Skipton and Bradford Forster Square. The Leeds to London service will also be extremely limited with only one train every hour.

Find their full timetable here.

East Midlands Railway

On strike days there will be one fast train per hour between Nottingham, Sheffield, Corby and London and one per hour on routes between Derby, Matlock, Nottingham, Leicester and Sheffield. All other lines will be closed.

For more information and to view their timetable, click here.

Crosscountry

Crosscountry will also be running a very limited service with no road transport busses in replacement.

You can find more information and their timetable here.

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Feature image: Leeds City Railway Station