Industrial Action affecting rail services - 13, 14, 16 and 17 December and 3, 4, 6 and 7 January

Planned industrial action is set to have a major impact on rail services from Tuesday 13 December until Saturday the 7 January 2023 as:

• The RMT union has announced industrial action will be taking place on Tuesday 13, Wednesday 14, Friday 16 and Saturday 17 December and on Tuesday 3, Wednesday 4, Friday 6 and Saturday 7 January affecting all rail companies that operate through South Yorkshire.

• The UNITE union have confirmed its members will be taking strike action on Friday 23 and Saturday 24 December affecting East Midland Railway services.

• An overtime ban is in place for 4 weeks across the railways for RMT members at Network Rail, TPE, LNER, EMR and Cross Country from Sunday 18 December until Monday 2 January reducing rail services. Customers are advised to check before they travel and leave extra time for disruption and short notice changes.

How will this impact rail services?

On strike days any services which do operate are expected to be extremely busy and operate a reduced timetable, starting later than usual and finishing earlier (before 19:00).

Customers are advised ‘Do not travel’ on strike days.

On the days between strikes a significantly reduced level of service will be in place as trains will be in the wrong locations and customers should expect some disruption to the advertised service levels.

Customers should check before they travel and expect severe disruption.

Operators are currently working on the impact the above will have on their services and more information will be available soon on their dedicated webpages:

• Northern Trains Ltd (NTL) - https://www.northernrailway.co.uk/travel/strikes

• Cross Country (XC) - crosscountrytrains.co.uk/disruption
• East Midland Railways (EMR) - eastmidlandsrailway.co.uk/rail-strike.
• Hull Trains (HT) - hulltrains.co.uk/travel-information/industrial-action.
• London North Eastern Railway (LNER) - lner.co.uk/travel-information/Industrial-action/.
• Transpennine Express (TPE) – tpexpress.co.uk/travel-updates/strike-action

Tickets

Operators are relaxing rules relating to ticket validity on strike days. Customers are advised to check with their respective operator as they may be able to travel before or after strike days or claim a full refund with no admin fee if they decide not to travel (from point of purchase or the operator’s refunds page).

Most ticket offices across the region are expected to be closed, this will reduce the range of tickets available.

Planning ahead and how to help

SYMCA will also support passengers affected by the industrial action by providing up to date information via Travel South Yorkshire channels as follows:

• On the TSY website travelsouthyorkshire.com via the disruptions page
• On Twitter @TSYalerts
• By phone via Traveline on 01709 51 51 51

It would be appreciated if you could please help to advise customers of the upcoming strike, and encourage them to check for the latest travel information before they travel and allow extra time to make their journey, to allow for disruption and short notice changes.

Customers should stay up to date with their train operating company on social media, or @TSYalerts and visit the above operator web sites for the latest timetable information.

Kind regards

Rachel

Rachel Cowling

Communications Officer – External Relations