more train strikes England today and onwards

Thanks, Nigel. Workarounds definitely a crowd issue.

(When I was in London a few weeks ago, there was a lot of construction at Waterloo, which made rerouting a bit of a challenge.)

Nationarail and Virgin Trains don't seem to know about any problems on West Coast, are you sure about this one?

For the benefit of outsiders, the British train operators publish their timetables with many train services in them. But virtually none employ enough crews to run that many trains. So then they rely on their staff being willing to work their days off to cover the gaps. Which requires a degree of goodwill, and then one day some bright new manager does something without thinking and goodwill is lost. Virgin are usually the best at maintaining goodwill. Southern are the worst.

Yup, pretty sure, SteveB.

I work in and out of Euston regularly and have a chance to see Virgin up close and talk with the staff.

There has been an overtime ban for some weeks now. It won't show on the disruption page because it isn't organised and advertised disruption; trains are cancelled ad hoc when they don't have a (full) crew.

In the normal scheme of things VT (WC) don't cancel many trains. Many of the current crop of missing trains are down to that....

And yes, in the absence of overtime and rest-day working the railway as a whole would grind to a halt. It is amazing how the good will keeps things running, and the absence of it puts plenty of sand in the works.