Basingstoke MP, Maria Miller, is calling on the rail unions to scrap industrial action planned by the RMT Union, which will coincide with local school and college exams including A Levels and other public examinations.
Maria said: “It is most concerning that strike action on the railway network for the week of 21 June will likely go ahead. This will cause major disruption to rail services across the country, including Basingstoke.
“Many Basingstoke train commuters include health workers and contract workers who don’t have the luxury of shifting to home working on train strike days; others are school and college students taking important public exams. After more than 2 years of nationwide disruption, which has left the railways reeling, this threatened strike action will do little to help encourage passengers to go back onto our train network and will create further knock-on damage to our town and city centres. I hope Unions have a change of heart to avoid this strike action at all costs.
“South Western Railway (SWR) is doing all it can ahead of this Union action, to try to have a skeleton service running between Basingstoke and London Waterloo. However, this will be a much reduced service and will inevitably lead to significant disruption for all of us who rely on the railways to get to work, school or college."
The strike action is planned for 21, 23 and 25 June. Large parts of the national network will be closed.
The action covers all 14 train operators and Network Rail, alongside simultaneous strikes by London Underground staff. SWR has 2,100 RMT members and will therefore be heavily impacted.
As a priority route, trains will still run between Basingstoke and London Waterloo.
There will be two 12 carriage services per hour on strike days:
From Basingstoke – first train 07:15, last at 17:15
From Waterloo – first train 07:24, last at 16:54
Disruption is expected for the entire week, including Wednesday 22 and Friday 24 June, when a Sunday level service will be in operation. On those days services will begin operating from 7:30am.
SWR are deploying 250 extra contingency staff to safely operate railways. All contingency staff have been fully trained. SWR are also in communication with the Deputy Chief of British Transport Police to ensure there is appropriate support and safety in place for staff and customers.
SWR and Network Rail are advising customers to:
Only travel by rail if absolutely necessary between 21-26 June;
Not travel to a station that is open if they wouldn’t normally use it, as these will be exceptionally busy;
Expect severe disruption, and if they have to travel, to do so by other means is at all possible.
Further information can be found on SWR’s website, here:
https://www.southwesternrailway.com/plan-my-journey/industrial-action
