East Coast Main Line passengers warned: Don’t travel unless it’s absolutely necessary
Rail bosses are urging passengers to avoid the East Coast Main Line unless travel is absolutely necessary for the rest of this week.
All routes in cluding local trains across North Yorkshire will be affected over the coming days.
Passengers are being warned of severe disruption from tomorrow (Tuesday, 13 December) to Saturday (17 December) as the RMT, TSSA and Unite unions stage strike action
A reduced timetable is planned to run along the East Coast Main Line, which connects York with London and Edinburgh, with trains starting later and finishing much earlier than usual, between 7.30am and 6.30pm.
Train operators affected by an overtime ban will also mean reduced services between Sunday 18 December and Monday 2 January.
Passengers should check with their train operator for the latest information:
The latest timetables can be found on National Rail Enquiries.
During this period, services are likely to be extremely busy and subject to last minute cancellations.
Passengers are being urged to only travel by train if it’s absolutely necessary, know their last train home and to expect severe disruption.
Paul Rutter, East Coast Route Director for Network Rail said: “Unfortunately, we need to ask passengers to prepare for some significant disruption to train services this winter.
“Along the East Coast Main Line, we’ll be running as many trains as we can, but this will be very limited and services that do run are likely to be much busier and may be cancelled at short notice.
“Please check your journey before setting off, know your last train times and expect disruption.”
Additional strike dates have also been announced by the RMT between Christmas Eve and 27 December. The railway will be closed as usual on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.
Further strikes are planned for 3, 4, 6 and 7 January, so passengers should plan ahead and check networkrail.co.uk/industrial-action for the latest updates.
Engineering works mean that trains will miss York completely over Christmas anyway, with a lovely coach service instead. Take the car it’s more reliable, comfortable and likely to be on time.