www.scotsman.com
Absolutely.I wouldn't rely on LNER to give you information regarding the strikes. Your best bet would be to ask Scotrail.
RMT warns of ‘long summer of strikes’ at ScotRail as more stoppages announced
Passengers face six more Sundays of major ScotRail disruption after walkouts over pay were today extended to mid-July as the union warned of a “long summer of strike action”.
If this is anything to go by, the RMT look to be wanting to push this out for as long as possible.
July is right in the middle of Scotland holidays. So would book the tickets now. They should be on the system now. If you miseed the train at Edinburgh and LNER are still wanting compulsory booking of services it's not impossible for the next trains to be booked out. So would make sure you get there in time for your reserved serviceAbsolutely.
I called them just to check that they would carry us on a later service if we (inevitably) missed the booked one.
Answer yes if necessary but would need to make a new reservation. (Not sure what happens if the next few trains are booked up.
Think we'll probably end up on the last one crawling in to King's Cross.
Given the financial implications, i.e it is probably reducing operating losses to have the staff on strike, and the staff are probably not extremely unhappy with the relatively small pay reduction as quid pro quo of slightly fewer hours working, there is no imperative for a change here. To put it another way it looks unlikely to be resolved soon. The Union demand for a premium rate of overtime is overwhelmingly unlikely to be met. The disparity may well end however if the drivers' agreement expires.
The agreement was that the enhanced overtime rate would end when all vacancies were filled and there was no theoretical need for overtime. That has happened in the RMT grades, lots of new guards and TEs all trained up and working. There are no vacancies. For the drivers although the recruitment has happened to achieve this the training stopped due to 2 people not being permitted in a cab. Once all the trainees are qualified the drivers additional payment will end as well, but that's not likely in the near future due to the huge backlog. I suspect the RMT didn't think the company would actually fill all the vacancies as they have traditionally relied on overtime but they have, and the payment stopped as agreed.
It appears so.
County court it is then. Let them spin their BS to a judge... That'll go well for them...
It moved to Glasgow in 2019 but is still here. Definitely Scotland.
I looked on Scotrail's website, where they don't seem to want to give you a telephone number very easily so I Googled "Scotrail telephone number" or suchlike. It came up with 03448110141 which I called and got a number of recorded options given by a lady with a Scottish accent mentioning Scotrail. The most applicable seemed number 1 which put me through to a real person with an Indian accent whose lack of knowledge of anything I mentioned made it clear she was probably not in Scotland.
Perhaps when the new franchise owner wants to bring in Driver only trains.
There are people in Glasgow with Indian accents.
Indeed. The bus service in the central belt and across much of the rest of Scotland is definitely in the position where it can accommodate nearly all of the railway's market.
Wouldn’t a significant number of these type of jobs currently be preformed by people working from home ?
Unfortunately, that's very true, which is why the RMT are very squarely shooting themselves in the foot here.
Indeed. My post ought have read "the railway's Sunday market", but as you intimate it's able to bring in some extra capacity more easily than the railway can and isn't actually that far away on other days of the week too.
Last time I agreed with and referred to a post made by @Tazi Hupefi i got at least 3 messages asking me if I had been hacked, but i feel it is fairly accurate when they suggest that this is unlikely to go in your favour either. When the passenger is "always" wrong, the passenger is always wrong. That signal ALWAYS clears.
inconvenience to passengers isn't inconvenience.
I think a few people are prematurely ruling out the possibility that the people paid to help passengers haven't got a damn clue what they're doing and have next to zero knowledge in helping passengers, at least with this particular question.
Certainly if it goes on too long, people will automatically assume it's no good even attempting to travel by train on a Sunday, and a big chunk of the leisure market will be lost for good.
"Pointless" to you apparently means not in accordance with your economic and political beliefs. Your view on industrial relations is that staff should accept BOHICA....
You make a lot of assumptions without knowing my reasoning!
