One Million Passengers Hit Rail and Underground Tube Strikes 2017 February

Chaos As One Million Passengers Hit Rail and Underground Tube Strikes 

Sections of the Central line, used by more than 800,000 passengers a day were closed with severe delays to the remainder of the route. There was no service at the Eastern end between Leytonstone and Epping via Woodford with delays throughout central London to West Ruislip.

Waterloo & City line services – the direct one-stop link between the mainline station and Bank – used by 32,000 passengers a day were suspended. Southern Rail mainline services, carrying 300,000 plus passengers a day, suffered cancellations and delays because of a 24-hour walkout – the 29th strike – by train guards in the long running dispute over driver-only operation (DOO.)

The company reported disruption to all 10 line groups including the Brighton line and Gatwick Express. Southern commuters changing to South West Trains services arriving at Waterloo were then hit by the strike on the Waterloo & City line.

There were no trains at all on some routes including those between Clapham Junction and Milton Keynes Central via Kensington Olympia/Watford Junction. Some services between Eastbourne and Brighton and London Bridge were cancelled.

On the Tube stations serving other lines were much busier than usual as commuters sought alternative routes to and from work.

The situation was not expected to improve on either the Tube or Southern during the day with passengers facing the same problems getting home again in the evening. There were huge queues outside many stations including Chingford, Ilford and Leytonstone. The Victoria line was also much busier than usual particularly at Walthamstow Central along with the Jubilee line between London Bridge and Waterloo.

The Tube dispute is over the “forced” transfer of eight drivers from their home depot at Leytonstone to others further afield, mainly Earl’s Court.

London to Heathrow Airport Taxis

A new row broke over the transfer as London Underground (LU) said it was entitled to move the drivers under a “mobility clause” in their contracts, seen by the Evening Standard. That states: “Your normal working location will be Leytonstone Train Crew depot Central Line. “LU will endeavour to allocate you to an operating location convenient to you but reserves the right to require you to work at any place it may from time to time determine within the area served by LU and London Buses.”

Peter McNaught, Operations Director for the Central line, said: “I apologise to customers for the disruption that this unnecessary strike is causing. “We have made all reasonable efforts to resolve this dispute through talking through the issues with the unions, and we have minimised the number of employees affected from over 30 to eight. “All of these moves are within the long-standing agreements we have made with the unions.

We call on the RMT to honour this long-standing agreement ‎and join us for more talks to resolve this issue.” An RMT spokesman countered: “LU has made absolutely no effort at all to allocate drivers to their home depot. That is the point of the argument – they are just pushing people across the network without agreement.”

Private Taxi from London to Gatwick Airport