Almost no trains will run in England on Friday as drivers strike

No trains will tally crossed astir of England connected Friday arsenic drivers successful nan Aslef national shape their 2nd 24-hour onslaught this week.

Drivers will onslaught arsenic portion of nan long-running salary conflict astatine 14 train operating companies, leaving passengers facing disruption astir Britain.

Most of nan biggest operators person said they will beryllium incapable to tally immoderate trains passim nan day.

Passengers person been told to cheque earlier attempting to travel, pinch imaginable disruption to nan remaining skeleton services connected Greater Anglia, LNER and GWR.

Most drivers are not connected onslaught astatine South Western Railway, which hopes to tally a afloat service, while action is not being taken astatine C2C aliases Merseyrail.

Trains tally by Transport for London, Scotrail and Transport for Wales are not affected aft nan devolved authorities settled salary claims pinch unions. However, mainline services moving to and from London will beryllium severely disrupted.

Rail firms warned that greeting services connected galore lines whitethorn besides beryllium disrupted connected Saturday, arsenic trains whitethorn beryllium retired of position aft nan strike.

The eighth time of nationalist action by Aslef follows a akin 24-hour strike connected Wednesday. No further strikes are scheduled by immoderate obstruction union, though Aslef warned that much dates could beryllium announced, saying this week that negotiations successful nan salary conflict had “gone backwards”.

Aslef rejected an initial connection past month by negotiators from nan train operators assemblage nan Rail Delivery Group (RDG), of 8% complete 2 years pinch strings attached, which nan union’s adjunct wide secretary, Simon Weller, said was “designed to fail”.

He said members had been angered by nan offer, moving acold beneath inflation, and were pressing national leaders to return stronger business action.

Other unions whitethorn nevertheless beryllium person to settling. The RMT, whose members person staged nan mostly of nan nationalist strikes successful nan past twelvemonth – costing nan manufacture astir £480m successful mislaid summons revenue, according to nan RDG – is considering a revised connection from Network Rail.

Network Rail, which is responsible for Britain’s railway infrastructure, told unit this week that it had added caller proposals successful a written connection to nan union, though nan wide magnitude of money is understood to person not changed from nan woody rejected by RMT members successful a referendum earlier Christmas.

The RMT said it would consult pinch members successful section branches connected nan item of nan offer.