A month of rail disruption has begun, with workers walking out in the first of a wave of 48-hour strikes.
Services across the nation will be impacted, including Merseyrail and routes connecting Liverpool to the rest of the country. Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union are pressing ahead with two 48-hour strikes at Network Rail, Avanti, Northern, and most other rail companies.
Trains are only running from 7.30am to 6.30pm today (December 13) and tomorrow (December 14), with further walk-outs planned later this week on Friday, December 16 and Saturday, December 17. Industrial action is also planned for Saturday, December 24 through to Tuesday, December 27, and further dates in January.
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Here's how the services in and around Liverpool will be impacted:
Merseyrail
A limited service is operating, with a 45-minute service running between approximately 07:30 and 18:30.
No trains are running between Chester and Rock Ferry, Ellesmere Port and Rock Ferry, or Liverpool Central and Hunts Cross. Trains will run every 45 minutes between Rock Ferry and Liverpool Central, calling at all stations.
Trains will run every 45 minutes, calling at all stations, on the New Brighton line, West Kirby line, Southport line, Hunts Cross line, Ormskirk line, and Kirkby line. When strikes end on Thursday, trains will be reintroduced from 06:50. You can see a full list of train times here.
Northern
Passengers are urged “do not travel” as only a small number of routes have trains. The route from Liverpool Lime Street to Manchester Airport will see a train leave once an hour between 07:59 and 17:02, with no later services available. There is also one train per hour for the return journey, with the last train leaving Manchester Airport at 17:32.
Other open routes include York to Leeds and Leeds to Sheffield. You can see the full timetable here.
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Avanti West Coast
There is one train per hour in both directions between London Euston and Liverpool Lime Street between 8am and 4pm. This is the same for services from London to Birmingham, Manchester and Preston, and a limited service is operating to Glasgow.
Several areas are not being served, such as Blackpool, Edinburgh, North Wales and Shrewsbury. You can see a full timetable for strike days here.
Network Rail had offered a 5% pay rise for this year – backdated to January – with another 4% at the start of 2023 and a guarantee of no compulsory job losses until January 2025. The RMT’s executive recommended rejecting the offer, saying it was linked to “significant” changes to working practices.
The RMT said 63.6% voted to reject Network Rail’s offer on an 83% turnout.
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